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TO A FRIEND
Happy 60th birthday, Israel!
Saturday May 17, 2008
By Ellis Washington
I am four things – I am an American, I am a black man, I am an academic without a home, and I am a lover of the Jewish people and of the nation of Israel.~ Ellis Washington (2007)
Madam C.J. Walker Library, Detroit, Mich., circa 1967
I was almost 6 years old, my brother 3 and my little sister 1. We were waiting for my mother to check out some books. Her co-workers at my local elementary school called her "white lady" because she believed in educating yourself and strove for a better life through personal discipline.
I remember walking up and down the aisles, looking in amazement at row after row of wonderful books from floor to ceiling in this very old library built in the Georgian, Neo-classical style. Reminiscing with my mother last weekend she affirmed my recollection of some of the book titles she either checked out or were titles I read in later years –Maimonides, Moses Mendelssohn, Spinoza, Emma Lazarus, Einstein, Gustav Mahler (one of my favorite composers), Wiesel, Golda Mier, Allan Bloom and others.
Who were these Jewish people?
Following my mother's lead, I later began going to the library on my own, reading marvelous books on history, theology, philosophy, epistemology, sociology, music, art, politics and of course a young teenagers favorite – Ripley's "Believe it or Not." Many of these books I would later learn were in some manner written by or about the Jews, their literature (the Torah) and their culture (Judaism).
Who were these Jewish people?
John Marshall Law School, Atlanta, Ga., circa 1992
The classes were called "Jurisprudence" and "Constitutional Law II," taught by Dr. David Meltz, the dean of John Marshall Law School. He was a libertarian and a Jew. Dean Meltz was a very affable, learned and magnificent man whose teachings about the U.S. Constitution as well as books he gave to me on jurisprudence, political philosophy (Leo Strauss, Allan Bloom), philosophy (Spinoza, Ayn Rand), history (Paul Johnson's, "Modern Times," "A History of the Jews") and economics (Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman) utterly transformed my intellectual worldview.
Who were these Jewish people?
In an earlier column praising the nation of Israel called "The 2-state solution against Israel," I recalled one of my frequent visits to Dean Meltz's office where he frequently told me: "If Israel doesn't own the land explicitly and repeatedly decreed to them by God in the Torah, then no nation can ever claim better title to any land on earth."
I memorized those words and wrote them in my heart. Moreover, I endeavored to establish my entire worldview on history, law, economics, political philosophy and geopolitics to be based upon the foundation of those profound words uttered by Dr. David Meltz, my dean, my law professor, mentor, friend … and a Jew.
Who were these Jewish people?
Not every Jew is a friend of Israel
Here, I must add a somber word of caution to the wonderful nation of Israel, whose people, literature and culture, in my opinion, has done more to improve the human condition than any other race of people from antiquity. However, everyone that calls themselves a Jew is not for the nation of Israel. For example, the great classical music conductor and pianist Daniel Bareboim for years has been very public and gratuitously provocative in his frequent pronouncements against his own nation and his own people's biblical and constitutional mandate for peace and self-determination in Israel.
A case in point is that Baremboim has recently stated publicly that he would not celebrate nor take part in any of the events celebrating the 60th anniversary of the nation of Israel. For shame, Maestro Baremboim, but why?
Let me say here that 25 years ago, before I became a lawyer and a legal scholar, I was a classically trained orchestral musician (French horn). I cut my teeth on the magnificent recordings by Barenboim.
That said, Barenboim, like many artists, intellectuals, academics, scholars, political opportunists and those who place their feeble opinions and ideas above the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and the Torah, will always exist and will always be wrong. Pick a man, a woman, an event or an historic epoch of time and I guarantee you it is the same, irrevocable refrain of ignominy by the enemies of Israel and the Jews:
- The biblical patriarch Abraham (at this time an old man) with 318 servants vs. a confederation of five pagan Canaanite kings and their armies. Who won? The Jews (here, the father of the Jewish people).
- Moses and the children of Israel vs. the Pharaoh of Egypt (perhaps Ramsees II ["The Great"]). Who won? With God's help, the Jewish slaves won over the then-superpower of the ancient world, Egypt, which after the famous 10 plagues God sent denigrating 10 pagan gods, has never recovered her greatness since.
- Mordecai/Queen Esther vs. the wicked Haman in the book of Esther. Who won? The Jews. Haman was an Old Testament precursor of Hitler who for a perceived slight by Mordecai wanted to kill every Jew within the 120 provinces of the Persian King Ahasureus – from India to Sudan.
- The Jews vs. the Muslim persecution in the Middle Ages. Who won? The Jews thrived in Arab and European lands during these times despite overwhelming religious persecution, slavery and pogroms against the Jewish people.
- America! We owe the Jewish people an invaluable debt of gratitude for the crucial year 1492 was the time that Spanish King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella sent out their racist, anti-Semitic decree that all Jews either convert to Catholicism or be kicked out of Spain. However, prescient Jewish merchants in search of a new land outside of Europe and Arabia where they could live in peace as Jews helped finance Christopher Columbus' mission, which lead to the discovery of "the New World" – America.
- Even in the early 1780s, when America's republic was in the cradle of her existence and the revolution against the omnipotent superpower of England and King George III was about to crush our collective yearnings for freedom, liberty and self-determination, a wealthy Jewish merchant and financier named Haym Solomon loaned Gen. George Washington and the fledging government of America, by the time of Solomon's death in 1785, the modern equivalent of about $40,000,000,000!.
From the Jewish people I have learned to be an eternal optimist. That for every Haman there is a Mordecai and a Queen Esther; for every Jezebel and her 450 false priests on the payroll, there is one true prophet, Elijah, on God's payroll; for every giant Goliath there is a passionate, obscure shepherd boy, David, with a giant's heart; for every Antiochus Epiphanies there is a Judas Maccabeus.
For every Sultan Suleiman I there is a King John III Sobieski who at the Battle of Vienna stopped the Muslim menace and saved Europe on a fateful Sept. 11, 325 years ago; for every Hitler, Himmler, Goring, Heydrich, Eichman, there is a Raoul Wallenberg, Per Anger, Arthur Shindler, Elie Wiesel, Simon Wiesenthal and countless other lovers of liberty who in their own way valiantly fought the Nazi menace and won.
It is these Jewish heroes and allies of the wonderful Jewish people whom I celebrate on this most magnificent commemoration 60 years after Israel's rebirth as a nation.
Happy 60th birthday, Israel. Israel will live forever. Shalom!
Related offer:
"Myths and Facts:
A Guide to the Arab-Israeli Conflict"
Ellis Washington, former editor at The Michigan Law Review and law clerk at The Rutherford Institute, is a graduate of John Marshall Law School and a lecturer and freelance writer on constitutional law, legal history, political philosophy and critical race theory. He has written over a dozen law review articles and several books, including "The Inseparability of Law and Morality:
The Constitution, Natural Law and the Rule of Law" (2002), "Beyond the Veil:
Essays in the Dialectical Style of Socrates" and He has just completed the manuscript to his latest book, "The Nuremberg Trials: Last Tragedy of the Holocaust" (2007).
Washington's latest book, "The Nuremberg Trials: Last Tragedy of the Holocaust," can be pre-ordered by calling 800-462-6420, promotion code "UPREPUB."
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