Jews are now commemorating what is known as the Three Weeks.  It is when Jews express grief for the destruction of the Holy Temple in ancient Israel.  The Temple was breached by the Romans in 69 C.E.  The mourning period concludes with a fast to remember when both Holy Temples were set aflame.  Thus, Tisha B'Av (Ninth of Av) is the saddest day of the Jewish calendar.

These calamitous events, among others, came from outside the Jewish world but have impacted it for centuries.  What is happening today in America and abroad is that Jews are deliberately working against themselves.  Why are so many Jews joining forces with a known anti-Semitic group such as the Black Lives Matter?

In his 2015 book titled Jews Against Themselves, Edward Alexander examines the various strains of thought that many Jews have adopted.  The ultimate aim of each strain is the hollowing out of Judaism and the obliteration of Israel.  These approaches pit Jewish particularism against Jewish universalism, the latter which results in undermining Jewish interests and lives.  In essence, it is "Jewish suicidalism [sic]."

For example "Judith Butler who urges progressive people to fight anti-Semitism ... maintains that it is 'wildly improbable that somebody examining the divestment petitions signed by herself and her co-conspirators might take them (as hundreds on her own campus already had) as condoning anti-Semitism.'"  In short, Butler dismisses actions such as BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) and cannot comprehend that they are overtly anti-Semitic.  She is wearing blinders while maintaining the alleged moral high ground.

Thus, while Jews have faced variations of anti-Semitism throughout the centuries, the latest manifestation occurs when the "new anti-Jewish Jew embraces his Jewishness [sic] by attacking Israel" either directly or indirectly.  Consequently, "he claims to be more authentically Jewish than those ... fellow Jews who somehow fail to follow him in his tireless efforts to delegitimize and thus destroy the only Jewish state."

These Jews are "great moralizers," using Jewish concepts in a perverse way to delegitimize Israel and other Jews who will not join the chorus of support for groups who are publicly anti-Semitic.  For example, Jews for Racial & Economic Justice "claims it is inspired by Jewish tradition to dismantle racism and economic exploitation [and] on its website, the organization highlights its work with Black Lives Matter and its efforts to fight Islamophobia and dismantle ICE."  In fact, this group is letting anti-Semites be its guide.

Thus, we see more than 400 Jewish organizations and synagogues signing on to a letter that asserts "unequivocally: Black Lives Matter."  Do these folks know that Black Lives Matter was

"founded by Marxist revolutionaries in 2013, [and] Black Lives Matter (BLM) is a movement that depicts the United States as a nation awash in racism, sexism, and homophobia"?

Demonstrators at BLM events have been known to smear white police as trigger-happy bigots who are intent upon killing innocent, unarmed black males; taunt, and direct obscenities at, uniformed police officers who are on duty; throw rocks at police and threaten to kill them; and celebrate in the streets when a police officer is killed."

• At a BLM march in August 2015, protesters chanted : 'Pigs in a blanket, fry 'em like bacon.' ('Pigs' was a reference to police officers, and 'blanket' was a reference to body bags.)
• On a BLM-affiliated radio program ... the hosts laughed at the ... assassination of a white Texas deputy; boasted that blacks were like lions who could prevail in a 'race war' against whites; happily predicted that 'we will witness more executions and killing of white people and cops than we ever have before'; and declared that 'It's open season on killing white people and crackas.' ...

BLM was established as an online platform in 2013 by Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza, and Opal Tometi. In a July 2015 speech at the annual Netroots Nation convention in Phoenix, Cullors exhorted fellow blacks to 'rise the fuck up,' 'shut this shit down,' and 'burn everything down!' In 2015 as well, Cullors openly acknowledged BLM's revolutionary Marxist objectives, proclaiming on video: 'We actually do have an ideological frame. Myself and Alicia [Garza] in particular, we're trained organizers. We are trained Marxists.

In fact, they applaud "Eric Mann, a communist revolutionary and a domestic terrorist who in the 1960s and '70s was a member of the Students for a Democratic Society and the Weather Underground, whose shared objective was to launch a race war against the 'white' United States on behalf of the nonwhite Third World.  Mann trained Cullors in Marxist-Leninist ideology and the tactics of political organizing."

In short, the murder of white people of all ages is the BLM approach to ending racism!  For those Jews who are so concerned with slavery, please note that some corporations that are pouring in money to support Black Lives Matter "are using modern day slave labor."  Tikun olam, anyone?[1]

Zoe Strimpel explains how Black Lives Matter, which claims to be an anti-racist movement "often fosters anti-Semitism.  This is because the most committed anti-racists see Jews [as] part of an imperialist racist Zionist conspiracy, represented by Israel."  Consequently, Strimpel "was dismayed, but far from surprised to see, that the Black Lives Matter protests have gone on producing potent outbreaks of anti-Semitism."

A few weeks ago, rioting in Los Angeles following the murder of George Floyd saw a number of Jewish shops destroyed, synagogues vandalised with 'Free Palestine' graffiti, and a statue of Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat who saved thousands of Hungarian Jews from being murdered by the Nazis, daubed in anti-Semitic slogans.

Back in America, Ice Cube, the rapper, chose to advance the cause of George Floyd by posting a caricature of Jewish figures with the caption: 'All we have to do is stand up [against them] and their little game is over.' The image was nearly identical to one used by Nazis in the 1930s to incite hatred and violence against Jews. Ice Cube also praised Nation of Islam founder Louis Farrakhan, one of the world's most rabid anti-Semites. All in the name of racial justice, naturally.

Alex Winston explains how "Black Lives Matter UK called several times for parliamentarians and governments to implement 'sanctions, effective measures and an end to Israel's impunity.'"  Thus, a "major UK Jewish watchdog has called out the UK chapter of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement for anti-Semitism after a series of anti-Israel tweets[.]"

The Campaign Against Anti-Semitism (CAA) responded to the tweet, writing that 'Black Lives Matter movement should embrace solidarity from Jews.  There have been calls for violence against [Jews] from prominent BLM supporters with no official condemnation. Now from the official UK BLM account, we hear ... that fighting anti-Semitism has 'gagged' legitimate debate.

CAA "wrote on its website. 'BLM is treading a well-worn path walked by many extremists and abhorred by real civil rights leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who once told a student in Boston who had made a comment attacking 'Zionists': 'When people criticize 'Zionists' they mean 'Jews' You're talking anti-Semitism!'"

So while Jews think they are engaging in a Martin Luther King march for civil rights, they are in complete denial about the true nature of BLM.

And it should never be forgotten that the Marxist BLM and the radical Islamic forces are allies.

This is not the first case where what may be a jihadist attack took place amidst a larger anti-police Black Lives Matter narrative being pushed by the radical left.  Following protests in Ferguson, MO in response to the death of Michael Brown, Islamist groups played a public role in organizing and spreading propaganda.  Multiple incidents targeting police involved individuals with Islamist links, like Zale Thompson, Jaleel Abdul-Jabbar, and Ismaaiyl Brinsley.

As the goals of the left and the radical Islamists are similar, it is no surprise that they have joined forces.  Jews, wake up!

Why have so many Jews forgotten the words of Emma Lazarus, who said, "A study of Jewish history is all that is necessary to make a patriot of an intelligent Jew"?  How have Jews become so naïve that they do not see that they are the pawns of a group that will use them and then discard them as useful idiots?

Some Jews are beginning to be roused. According to Yair Rosenberg, "... an alliance of groups affiliated with the Black Lives Matter movement unveiled their first official platform.  The 40,000-word manifesto contained many recommendations, including concrete policy proposals, for rectifying the wrongs perpetrated against America's African-American citizens in the past and present. Unfortunately, the platform also contained a vicious bigoted slur against the Jewish state, which the document's foreign policy section accused of perpetrating 'genocide' against Palestinians.  (The platform also labeled Israel an 'apartheid state' and joined with the BDS movement in calling for the total academic, cultural, and economic boycott of the country — a demand made for no other state.)[2]  This did not go over well with Jewish groups — including some of Black Lives Matters' hitherto staunch progressive allies."

In 1988, Aharon Appelfeld wrote that "[t]he Jewish ability to internalize any critical and condemnatory remark and castigate themselves is one of the marvels of human nature." Appeasement by any nation leads to its demise. That Jews in this day and age abandon their own self-interest and give anti-Semitism a pass is breathtaking. That these Jews under the mantle of self-righteousness would permit the defamation, abandonment, and harm of their own people whether here or abroad means they need to better heed the prophet who wrote, "Awake, awake, Put on thy strength, O Zion" (Isaiah 52:1).

Eileen can be reached at middlemarch18@gmail.com.