Sources of (Jewish) Anxiety in America

​THE POSSIBLE ANSWERS COME FIRST:  

1. The CoronaVirus
2. The demonstrations and rioting
3. The developing division in the Democratic Party between the traditional Democrats and Socialist-Progressives.

THE QUESTION: WHAT IS THE RECENT CAUSE OF ANXIETY AMONG AMERICAN JEWISH LEADERS?
ANSWER 3 IS CORRECT!

God is calling His people from the earth’s farthest corners to return to their land.

But the American Jews are not, for the most part, responding. About fifteen to twenty-thousand per decade are moving to Israel.

And now, anxiety is besetting them.

Their grandparents and forebears chose America, not Israel, as their new and glorious homeland.

Then these Jews from Europe and Russia chose the Democratic Party as their political home. During the presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, no other group was more supportive of his presidency than were the Jewish people in America. And, as a whole, they’ve never moved.

So….fine. They made that political choice. But, it is only now….of late….that anxiety has set into Jewish democrats.

In a conversation with Rabbi Mark Golub in a YouTube broadcast, Hank Sheinkopf, Democratic Political Consultant from New York City, just last week, aired his anxiety. What’s happening? The democrats are heading leftward to radical positions and pushing the traditional democrats out of the political arena.

In New York City, Sheinkopf’s man, Eliot Engel, who represented his congressional district in the Bronx and Westchester, was democrat and traditional and had served for sixteen terms in the House of Representatives. He had been chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee. Now the votes are in, except for mail-ins. It’s clear--Eliot Engel’s opponent is a shoe-in.  

His replacement is farther left. It’s a indication of what’s happening. Hank Sheinkopf says: “There is a takeover of the Democratic Party.”  

The Jews of New York could depend on their man, Mr. Engel; but now he’s on his way out. Engel is a Jew-- thoroughly vetted and honored by the Jewish community in New York…supported by its big money. In the primary, he has been voted out. His replacement is an African-American school principal.

Gone are the times when New York’s Jews could depend on their Democratic Party to further their liberal programs and keep a watchful eye on the State of Israel…oh, and watch over all the Jews of New York City. And furthermore, Engle has been Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives. That is important because he has been a watchman in Congress on behalf of the State of Israel!  But now he is on his way out.  

The winner looks to be Jamaal Bowman, a Middle School Principal. The district is partly Hispanic and black as well as Jewish. His campaign was like that of Occasio-Cortez’.

The new leftward faction is shoving the traditional Jewish democrats OUT….and these New York Jews are nervous. Why? Because they are no longer in control. Another faction is in there pushing and yelling and taking over one big traditional base of the democrats. But more than that: there is anti-Semitism in this new faction!

We know of the quartet in the House of Representatives: Alexandria Occasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley and Rashiha Tlaib. They do not appreciate Israel, and they seem to care nothing about its welfare and survival.
Eliot Engle did. He had power, and he used it on Israel’s behalf.

The Jews, if they had started sooner, could have had a larger Jewish population and thus more clout; but they didn’t have enough babies! Then, when their babies grew to adulthood, they married outside the Jewish race. It’s been that way on both coasts—east and west. On the East Coast, so Mr. Sheinkopf said, 70 per cent of Jews marry Gentiles, and on the West Coast, 80 per cent on the East Coast.

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Only about 2400 Jews emigrated from America to Israel in 2018. But I believe that is soon going to change. We’ll see.

Nonetheless, it looks very much like American Jews are losing their influence here—at least politically—in the United States. Oh, it may take a while longer before their numbers go down precipitously and we view the ramifications of this.

But I believe that God, the Lord of nations and the Leader of His Chosen People, is wanting those people to go back home. And I think they will become more uncomfortable here, because anti-Semitism is getting worse and nowhere more so than on the university campuses. I intend to write of that menacing situation for young Jews very soon.  

Irreligious though many of them are and sinful though they may be, still they are a witness through the Lord’s covenant with them and their survival in human history.

​                 “They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the                    worship, and the promises. To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is                      the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen.” (Romans 9:4-5, ESV)
 

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