By Nancy Salvato
“L’shana ha-ba-ah b’yerushalayim” or “Next year in Jerusalem” is the wish of all Jews of the Diaspora, scattered from their homeland yet acknowledging their spiritual and historical home is Israel, specifically, Jerusalem. “Numerous exiles and persecution, as well as political and economic conditions and opportunities, affected the numbers and dynamics of Jewish Diaspora.” The largest number of Diaspora Jews (5,671,000 in 2003) live in the United States; astoundingly a smaller number than the amount of Jews killed in the Holocaust. Israel’s Jewish population is usually not considered Diaspora.
Those of the Jewish faith are most commonly categorized as Reform, Conservative, or Orthodox Jew. But as of right now, I’m adding my own category -Hollywood Jew. Hollywood’s brand of Jew defies legitimate membership in any of the above designations because it seems they don’t acknowledge the importance of the connection between the Jewish Diaspora and Israel.
If I am wrong, then how can the majority of Jews who make up the majority of the entertainment industry lend their financial and vocal support to people or causes working to undermine the war on terrorism? This occurs even though one of the goals of Islamic extremist groups is to destroy the state of Israel because they regard Israel as occupied Muslim land. In addition, both Al Qaeda (Osama Bin Laden) and Hamas (a Palestinian based organization prevalent in the Gaza Strip) are openly anti-Semitic. Do Hollywood Jews not realize that they are included in the intifada against infidels?
Jews all over the world derive comfort from knowing that they have a homeland where they need not suffer persecution from those harboring anti Semitic views. The Jewish people understand that the existence of a homeland in Israel is a great gift. This is so important that it is mandatory for every Israeli Jew to serve as a soldier defending Israel’s existence as a nation. Thankfully, President Bush understands Israel’s right to exist (unlike Clinton, who tried to pressure Israel to give into Arafat’s demands) and acknowledges that those who support terrorists are not interested in true compromise with their enemies.
Think about the inherent contradiction in any arguments against fighting the war against terrorism in Iraq. It is well known that Saddam Hussein was paying parents of suicide bombers in Palestine $25,000 for each successful attack against their targets. Saddam Hussein was no friend of Israel. How can any Jew justify support for a man who launched Scud missiles into Israel during the first Gulf War?
And now for the latest Hollywood abomination -it appears that Steven Spielberg is filming a movie about the Israeli response to Black September, which is largely sympathetic to the PLO affiliate who carried out the killing of the Israeli Olympians taken hostage.
Spielberg has allegedly hired a man to be his screenwriter who is on record as being anti- Semitic and anti- Zionist and who believes that modern Israel should never have been born. The moral of the film is that vengeance doesn’t work, that zero tolerance for terrorism is not the way to respond to those who won’t stop until their sworn enemies are dead. The goal of the film is to humanize the terrorists even though the terrorists deliberately didn’t speak with their captives so that they could dissociate from them when they had to be executed. Spielberg, as of this writing, has not made any contact with retired Mossad agents serving in key intelligence posts and who are likely the best sources for accurate information about how events actually played out. Yet this Hollywood Jew hopes that we can learn from his film how to carry out the war on terror.
In the war on terror, there can be no sympathy for the enemy because the enemy has no sympathy for us. The bottom line – Islamic extremists want us dead. There is no humanism in that.
Copyright © Nancy Salvato 2005
Nancy Salvato is the President of The Basics Project, (www.Basicsproject.org) a non-profit, non-partisan research and educational project whose mission is to promote the education of the American public on the basic elements of relevant political, legal and social issues important to our country. She is an experienced educator and an independent contractor with Prism Educational Consulting. She serves as Educational Liaison for Illinois Senator Carole Pankau. She works nationally and locally furthering the cause of Education Reform. Her writing is widely published on the internet and occasionally in print venues such as the Washington Times. Her opinions have been heard on select radio programs across the nation. Additionally, her writing has been recognized by the US Secretary of Education.
