I Will Survive... in Auschwitz?

I didn't think about writing this, but I just had to. You all must know the "I will survive" song and how Jesus starred in it, right? Well, another version of the song now has an Auschwitz survivor and his family dancing in the then concentration camp.



The song is hilarious, the editing and dancing is so-so. But what amazes me is that the 89 year-old man keeps such humor to dance on the place he once thought would be his tomb.

Of course, not everyone was happy

Anger after Australian Jew films video of her family singing 'I Will Survive' on a trip to Auschwitz

Kamil Cwiok, 86, was just a child when he and his family were rounded up by the Nazis. Most of his family died in the gas chambers at Auschwitz.

He said: 'I don't see how this video is a mark of respect for the millions who didn't survive, nor for those who did.

'It seems to trivialise the horrors that were committed there.'

I think that the man has earned his way to express his feelings towards the concentration camp. It would be outrageous if someone who hasn't seen and lived the horrors there made fun of it. But that man seemed happy to do it. He can do it. He can have fun and dance over the horrors of past time. Kudos for him.

The Jews and the reaction to the Flotilla attack

I don't write much about the Jews. This is mostly because either Christianity or Islam commit more atrocities and make their nonsense more obvious to the world. Which doesn't mean that the Jewish people are not guilty of anything, but in those cases, there is a huge percentage of the population (especially liberals) that will "stand for Palestine" and criticize Israel. Finally, I have to admit I don't know much about the Jewish community and I don't want to risk talking about something I don't know.

That might change, however. For the class I'm taking, I had to write a short paper about an issue involving the Jewish Faith. This is what I wrote:

On May 30, 2010 a flotilla carrying human rights workers was attacked by Israeli armed forces on international waters. The flotilla was taking supplies to the impoverished Gaza strip.

That attack was prompted after the Israeli military requested to inspect the ships, to look for materials that are not allowed to enter the Gaza strip. The Israeli government has banned aluminum, glass and other materials that might serve to build bases for hostile forces.

The blockade goes back as far as 2007, but the tension in the region started after the independence of Israel in 1948, when the Arab countries surrounding the newly founded country attacked it. The conflict between Muslim and Jewish people goes back to biblical times.

The attack on the flotillas brought disapproval to Israel’s measures towards the aid flotillas and to the Gaza embargo. After that, Israel relaxed its security along the Gaza border. This action could help alleviate the tension ins the middle East, tensions that ultimately affect the entire world, as they are related to the oil market and US international policy.

Reactions from the Jewish community have been mixed. Some army rabbis use the Jewish scripture to encourage soldiers to fight for their land:

"[There is] a biblical ban on surrendering a single millimeter of it [the Land of Israel] to gentiles, though all sorts of impure distortions and foolishness of autonomy, enclaves and other national weaknesses. We will not abandon it to the hands of another nation, not a finger, not a nail of it." This is an excerpt from a publication entitled "Daily Torah studies for the soldier and the commander in Operation Cast Lead," issued by the IDF rabbinate. The text is from "Books of Rabbi Shlomo Aviner," who heads the Ateret Cohanim yeshiva in the Muslim quarter of the Old City in Jerusalem.

On the other hand, after the attack to the flotilla, some rabbis have expressed their disgust, arguing also from their scripture:

Our silence now is an act of betrayal to the values we purport to live by and to the words of the prophet we read every Yom Kippur:

Is this the fast I desire? A day for people to starve
their bodies? Or bow their heads like a bulrush
or wear sackcloth and smear oneself with ashes...
No! This is the fast the Lord desires:
Unlock the fetters of oppression
Untie the cords of the yoke
Let the exploited go free, break off every chain.
share your bread with the hungry,
Shelter the poor in your own house
clothe the naked and do not ignore your own kin.

As rabbis, we believe all human beings are our kin. We cannot abide the suffering inflicted upon the people of Gaza.

Both declarations are made by religious scholars and based on Jewish scripture. Since the root of the conflict between the Jewish and Muslim community is in great part religious, it is important to consider the way in which religion is going to be used in this conflict. While it can be used to encourage troops to protect the country’s land, it can also be used to defend the human life, even if that involves complying with Israel’s enemies’ desires.

What happens with the Jewish scripture is pretty much the same thing that happens with other holy texts. It can be used for good or evil, depending how it is interpreted, and even those terms are not exact. Most of us will agree that a correct use of a holy text will advocate love and compassion. However, the rabbis who use it to encourage soldiers to fight will certainly justify their use of scripture for other uses. With this I don't want to say that a piece of scripture is inherently evil, but instead, imperfect. It depends on men to be interpreted. It has nothing of divine and nothing to do with God. At least not a loving and compassionate God.

The Twelfth before Christmas

For the 12th Day Before Christmas, religion gave to me...

Vatican Defends Status of WWII Pope

So, the catholic church wanted to start the beatification process for Pius XII. Who was that guy? He was the Pope during WWII, the same who was in very good terms with Hitler.




According to the catholic church "the beatification process evaluated the “Christian life” of Pius, who reigned from 1939 to 1958, and not “the historical impact of all his operative decisions."

So, you may see nothing wrong in rounding and killing jews and still be chosen as a model of "Christian Life".

That pretty much sums it up.

Some Jewish leaders protested, but the catholic church declared that this decision “is in no way to be read as a hostile act towards the Jewish people, and it is to be hoped that it will not be considered as an obstacle on the path of dialogue between Judaism and the Catholic Church.”

I beg to differ. I see this as a hostile act towards human intelligence. There are many other dead Popes, why this one? It was a dark spot in the Vatican's history and it would have been wrong to blame the whole church for this pope's action. But to give him beatitude status?

Unbelievable. But that's what faith is about, right? To believe the unbelievable, even when it is also nonsensical, undemocratic and stupid.



So, these were your 12 days before Christmas. I hope you enjoyed them. It will be Christmas in an hour (most of the world already has Christmas). But remember, if you celebrate Christmas, you ought to know the real origins.

Happy Holidays.

The Sixth Day Before Christmas

For the 6th day Before Christmas, religion gave to me...

Jews want their right to discriminate

The title of the article says "Our human rights culture has now become a tyranny". Oh, really? What is the case first? There is a Jewish school. There is a mother who wants her son in that school. There is a 3500 year-old law that says that because the mother of the kid is not a Jew, the kid is not a Jew.

First flag: Discrimination based on thousand years old laws.

Then there is the supreme court decision that says the kid was excluded on racial grounds. And then there is the ranting of the article, which argues that the "human rights culture" we live in nowadays is looking like a tyranny because it prohibits certain groups from discriminating against others. According the the author, it is wrong and outrageous to seek a society in which everyone has the same rights, because there are groups who value discrimination of others among their beliefs.

In this case, the irony is tremendous, since it's the Jews, a group that has been mistreated through history, the one who demands its right to discriminate.

Jewish parents get pranked

One of the reasons that make leaving the religion we were brought up with so hard is our parents’ reaction. Not every parent accepts the idea that their kids do not believe what they were educated. Many parents take this as a failure in their parenting skills, especially the very religious ones.

Another thing parents don’t seem to take very well is when their children start dating. The words “that person is not good for you” will eventually find their way from our parents’ mouth.

But what happens when that person “who is not good enough” is so because he or she is of a different religion?

That is what this Jewish girl discovered after making a prank call to her parents.



These are just some of the phrases that this very religious jewish parents yell at his supposedly daughter’s boyfriend:

Mom:
“He’s Italian, for God’s sake, what’s the matter with you? […] he could be a murderer, he could be anything”

How would it sound "He's black, for god's sake!" or "He's Hispanic, for god's sake. He could be a murderer." The xenophobia is so blatant that, more than funny, it's outrageous. Makes you hope something bad happens to that woman.

Dad:
“I thought you smarter than that, you really disappointed me”

This is classic: the emotional blackmail. "You did something I don't like, then you are not smart and I'm dissapointed." Doesn't this guy notice that by doing so he's basically saying "I have no arguments to defend my bigoted position, so I'll make as if I'm sad. Go ahead and stop believing me."

Dad:

“You motherfucker! I don’t like you, I don’t like anything about you, and if I see you, I’m gonna fucking break you in a million pieces”


Dad:
“I’m gonna come over there and beat the fucking living shit out of you”


Boyfriend:
Well, that wouldn’t be very religious now, would it?

I just loved this part. The old man rants, insults and yells at the guy who points out the elephant-size hypocrisy this man shows. He calls himself religious, yet is full of hatred nad prejudice. Unless judaism is a religion that promotes hatred (which wouldn't surprise me) this guy is the perfect example of a hypocrite.

I have to admit I laugh every time I listen to it. At the same time, it amuses me how the father gets so angry with her daughter just for dating a guy of another nationality. I don’t know if Jews have something against Italians. Even though the false boyfriend gets irreverent with the man, it’s pretty obvious that father has something against him without knowing more than his nationality and his religion.

The girl laughs, but it must suck to have parents like those, so prejudiced and hateful. I feel sorry for her.