This week, the U.S. moved its embassy from Tel Aviv on Israel’s Mediterranean coast to Jerusalem. The move fulfilled one of President Donald Tweet’s campaign promises. The president sent his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to represent the American Empire. 

            Jerusalem epitomizes all that’s wrong with U.S. foreign policy.

            Kushner had no foreign policy experience at all, prior to being appointed the White House’s “Senior Advisor” with particular emphasis on Middle Eastern issue. But he is Jewish. 

            His grandparents, Reichel and Joseph Kushner, were Holocaust survivors who came to the U.S. in 1949. His wife Ivanka converted to Judaism before her wedding to Kushner. That seems sufficient to validate his role.

            Rightly or wrongly, the U.S. seems to me to suffer from a massive guilt complex over the Holocaust, in which some six million Jews were murdered.

            As I read history, the Holocaust had no influence on the American entry into World War II. Until then, American industries continued to make handsome profits off their association with their German counterparts. They were not deterred by Hitler’s virulent anti-Semitism.

            Indeed, the horrors of the Holocaust were barely known until late in the war, when Allied forces liberated death camps like Auschwitz and Buchenwald. 

            Since then, the U.S. has suffered from a kind of national post-traumatic stress syndrome. From the outside, I sense that Americans believe they have a personal right to hold prejudices against Afro-Americans, Latinos, women, gays, Muslims, and government. 

            But not to be anti-Semitic. 

            In any discussion of prejudice, the analogy will always come up: “If you substitute ‘Jews’ for (fill in the blank with any of the groups listed above), would your views still be acceptable?”

The highest authority

            Instead of human rights, U.S. foreign policy treats the Bible as the final word on anything related to Jews. And, by extension, to anything related to the Middle East. 

            This attitude is particularly common among white evangelicals, 80 per cent of whom voted for President Tweet.

            Even though the Bible is not a primarily Christian book. Only one-quarter of it deals with the life and teachings of the man considered the founder of Christianity. 

            Yet the whole Bible is considered an authoritative Christian text, although Jesus had no intention of founding a new religion; rather, he wanted to revitalize Judaism. 

            Jesus was, in a sense, a Protestant within Judaism, just as Martin Luther was a Protestant within Catholicism. 

Not a Jewish town

            Let’s be clear – the Bible does state that the legendary King David chose Jerusalem as the capital of the new nation he had formed from the warring tribes descended from Jacob’s sons. That’s a selective reading, though. It ignores the Bible’s own testimony that David chose that site specifically because it did NOT form part of traditional Jewish territories. 

            Jerusalem existed as a town long before David took it over. The name is recorded in an Egyptian text dating around 1000 years before David. It was a mixed community -- Jebusites, Amorites, and Hittites, the ancestors of today’s Palestinians.

            No doubt the Jebusites had their own histories, justifying their right to occupy this place. But those records are not in the Bible. And in American foreign policy, only the Bible matters. 

            Any rational examination of the Bible would recognize that it is the story of one particular group of people, one relatively small but intensely competitive set of twelve familial tribes. Even the Bible acknowledges that they were interlopers, outsiders who immigrated first from the Euphrates river basin and then later from Egypt, who took over territories already owned by other peoples. 

            But because of the Bible, vast numbers of people believe that God gave this land to the Jewish people – and who the hell are you to question God’s intentions?

Expendable in the end

            Ironically, if I were a Jew, I would have deep suspicions about evangelical support. Because a prominent stream of evangelicalism views Jerusalem as the site of the Second Coming of Christ, the place where he will return to earth to impose a 1000-year reign of peace and justice. 

            At that time, Jews will either convert instantly to Christianity – or will vanish off the face of the earth, with other unbelievers. 

            To me, that sounds like yet another form of anti-Semitism. 

            Even if it is based on biblical texts.

            The Bible is not even a history. It is a book about one group’s relationship with God. It should not be treated as a text for international policy. 

*******************************************************

Copyright © 2017 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups encouraged; links from other blogs welcomed; all other rights reserved.

                  To send comments, to subscribe, or to unsubscribe, write jimt@quixotic.ca

********************************************************

YOUR TURN

I knew that any reference to the Shroud of Turin would evoke some contrary opinions – even if it wasn’t the main point of my column. 

            Dave Buckna took issue with my dating information. He wrote, quoting from a website, “The shroud was from the 13th century, concluded earlier researchers, using carbon 14 dating methods. Now, other experts are claiming the methods were flawed, because the researchers dated a mended patch made by medieval monks. BBC News reports a new claim that it is older than thought: between 1300 and 3000 years old. National Geographic News says the new tests, published in a peer-reviewed journal, ‘greatly increase the possibility that the shroud may be as old as Christianity itself.’”

And Bob Rollwagen offered a relatively plausible explanation of why the cloth – regardless of its real age – might have carried a negative image: “If a dead man’s head is wrapped in a cloth and left pressed against it in an environment the causes the cloth to absorb some of the body oils in a way that creates a shadow in the cloth that remains long after the body has decomposed and the cloth moves or is carried to another location, you now have a Shroud. 

            Bob admits there are “A lot of ifs and unknowns. Think of the pre-historic human found preserved in the ice of a glacier, thousands of years old. How did he get there? Nature is a very power force. Indigenous peoples of the world have better ideas about how this balance works.”

Tom Watson took a flight of fancy into photography in general: “I have this vision of the world being overtaken by digital photographs. In the days of film, people took one or two shots and then had the film developed. Then along came digital cameras and smart phones, which allowed the photographer to take multiple shots and then keep only the best. However, they rarely do that; they keep 'em all, so instead of photos being stored on boxes they're now in the cloud.”

            Like me, Tom “managed to inherit boxes of printed photos which are stored on a closet shelf awaiting the day when I turf them all. Wonder what my heirs will do with the photos I have stored in my little corner of the cloud...or will they just stay there forever gathering digital dust?”

Richard Broome was intrigued by my reference to “Limerick Day.” Richard edits “The Group Email of Limericks and Verses [which] seeks to encourage the use of limericks in polite society where they began in the nineteenth century,” and published a newsletter to other lovers of limericks.

******************************************

TECHNICAL STUFF

If you want to comment on something, write me at jimt@quixotic.ca. Or just hit the ‘Reply’ button.

                  To subscribe or unsubscribe, send me an e-mail message at the address above. Or subscribe electronically by sending a blank e-mail (no message) to sharpedges-subscribe@lists.quixotic.ca. Similarly, you can un-subscribe at sharpedges-unsubscribe@lists.quixotic.ca.

                  My webpage is running again -- thanks to Wayne Irwin and ChurchWeb Canada. You can now access current columns and five years of archives at http://quixotic.ca

                  I write a second column each Wednesday, called Soft Edges, which deals somewhat more gently with issues of life and faith. To sign up for Soft Edges, write to me directly at the address above, or send a blank e-mail to softedges-subscribe@lists.quixotic.ca

********************************************

PROMOTION STUFF…

To use the links in this section, you’ll have to insert the necessary symbols.

                  Ralph Milton ’s latest project is called “Sing Hallelujah” -- the world’s first video hymnal. It consists of 100 popular hymns, both new and old, on five DVDs that can be played using a standard DVD player and TV screen, for use in congregations who lack skilled musicians to play piano or organ. More details at wwwDOTsinghallelujahDOTca

                  Ralph’s HymnSight webpage is still up, http://wwwDOThymnsightDOTca, with a vast gallery of photos you can use to enhance the appearance of the visual images you project for liturgical use (prayers, responses, hymn verses, etc.)

                  Wayne Irwin's “Churchweb Canada,” an inexpensive service for any congregation wanting to develop a web presence, with free consultation. <http://wwwDOTchurchwebcanadaDOTca>

                  I recommend Isabel Gibson’s thoughtful and well-written blog, wwwDOTtraditionaliconoclastDOTcom

                  Alva Wood’s satiric stories about incompetent bureaucrats and prejudiced attitudes in a small town -- not particularly religious, but fun; alvawoodATgmailDOTcom to get onto her mailing list.

                  Tom Watson writes a weekly blog called “The View from Grandpa Tom’s Balcony” -- ruminations on various subjects, and feedback from Tom’s readers. Write him at tomwatsoATgmailDOTcom or twatsonATsentexDOTnet