Happy Birthday Israel and 9 Years HRT
Celebrating Yom Ha’Atzmaut and 9 years on HRT
May 1 marked Yom Ha’Atzmaut in the Jewish calendar this year. It also happened to coincide with my marking 9 years of HRT. Without HRT, I would be six feet under. That’s how bad things got in 2016…I pushed things off for as long as I could due to other reasons and by the start of Pesach, it was really bad. The Pesach diet was not a great combo with spiro so I pushed myself to get through to May 1, 2016.
May 1 also meant the start of Jewish American Heritage Month. I’ve spent much of April prepping and already have half of my planned editorial calendar already scheduled on Solzy at the Movies. I have a few TV binges planned for the month and will work the remaining films into my schedule.
I’m with Congressman Dan Goldman (D-NY) when it comes to making antisemitic visa holders into political martyrs. There are Americans still being held hostage in Gaza and the most people that I see vocal about this are Jewish. One American is still believed to be alive. That’s not to say anything about due process as the administration is doing everything it can to gut democracy and act in a fascist authoritarian manner.
“We are seeing, because of Donald Trump’s overreach, that people who have espoused antisemitism are becoming martyrs, and that scares me,” Goldman said at a Jewish Democratic Council of America conference in Washington on Thursday. “Because we should be talking about the five American hostages in Gaza who have been there for a year and a half, who were abducted by a terrorist group and are deceased in four of the cases, unfortunately, but one, Edan Alexander, remains alive.”
Goldman, a co-chair of the House antisemitism task force, continued, “We’re hearing so much about First Amendment issues, which I agree, people should not be detained, arrested, deported for expressing their views, no matter how much I disagree with them. But if we allow our party to focus so much on these detentions of people who have espoused antisemitism and we’re not talking about these hostages who have truly been treated as horribly as anybody and are American, in the five cases, we’re losing the forest for the trees.”
Meanwhile, Democratic Party chairman Ken Martin also spoke at the JDCA conference and made it clear as day regarding where the Democratic Party stands on things.
“It is so important right now for our party to stand up with the Jewish community, to continue to stand up for Israel, to continue to stand up for humanity and to not forget who we are as Americans,” Martin said in remarks to a Jewish Democratic Council of America conference in Washington, calling the Jewish community “really, really an important part of our coalition.”
He’s not wrong. Israel is America’s only democratic ally in the Middle East although its current prime minister is doing a very bad job at trying to keep it democratic.
U.S. Senator Jon Ossoff (D-GA) is working to regain trust of Jewish Democrats, especially in Georgia, after recent votes. But at the moment, he’s saying all the right things.
U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) wrote a letter to the felon in response to the dismissal of President Biden’s recent appointees to the bipartisan and nonpolitical U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council. Well said, Senator.
Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker is taking stance that has is drawing comparisons to the Bear Jew. Will this be enough? I don’t know. Pritzker isn’t the only Jewish governor being talked about as a 2028 presidential contender—Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro is also a likely contender for the race. It would bring great Jewish pride should either governor run for president and get elected. But the sad reality is antisemitism, antisemitism, antisemitism. Will their potential candidacies be enough to overcome the virus that is anti-Jewish hate?
Even before Bernie Sanders added what was described as poison amendments to the Antisemitism Awareness Act, the bill had already been watered down with an amendment that would still make it okay for people to be antisemitic. It was an amendment designed for the likes of MTG and others who hold the Jews responsible for something that the Romans did. The Catholic Church apologized in the 1960s but it somehow doesn’t enough.
As of now, the bill’s future is in doubt after the final vote was postponed this week.
The Republican Jewish Coalition is starting to wake up to the isolationists and antisemites on their side of the aisle. As I’ve said for a long time now, antisemitism is bipartisan and not limited to any one side of the political aisle. Unfortunately for RJC CEO Matt Brooks, the convicted felon’s admin has hired many isolationists and antisemites. I don’t expect this to change anytime soon. Recent polling has suggested that Republican youth are turning against Israel in higher numbers, no differently than what’s been happening in the Democratic Party.
Meanwhile, the felon is of the fakakta belief that the U.S. did more than any country during WW2. He’s wrong. America waited too long to enter the war and turned its back on the Jews of Europe, either in admitting them into the country or attempting to save them from the Nazis. Liberation came way too late. FDR gets a lot of praise for bringing the country out of the Depression but he had an antisemitic Secretary of State who impeded many efforts. It didn’t help either that Congress was heavily isolationist. Also, who gave the felon the right to rename V-E Day?!? And again, WW2 was not just limited to the European Theater. The Pacific Theater didn’t end until a few months later.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the felon’s admin has weaponized antisemitism and is using Jews as pawns. I’m not going to allow them to use me as a pawn while they destroy democracy.
Finally, for my Kentucky readers, Happy Oaks and Derby Weekend!