Contrary to the ill-informed claims of so many self-appointed “hasbara indigenous rights activists,” “Native-Americans” have little (if any) commonality with the Jewish nation. The analogy is ridiculous, and only one devoid of knowledge of Jewish history and Torah would make the comparison.
There is a definite reason “Indian rights” activists align with Arabs and their war with Israel. They share an interest in living the fantasy of a revolution that will never happen. And they have embraced anti-Israel positions for self-interest:
- As Jews we have a legacy and a mandate of bringing the knowledge of the One True G-d to the world. The Torah is a treasure trove of knowledge and intellectualism. Native Americans were animistic pagans. In Judaism, prophecy represents the highest level of intellect coordinated with a mastery of the body, and the creative faculties. The Native American “vision quest” represented the total abandonment of the rational faculty to primitive imagination, spurred on both by deprivation and artificial stimulus induced by hallucinogens. From a Torah perspective, every shaman must be a fraud. And the fraud is the antithesis of the Torah leader.
- Jewish law is predicated on the sanctity of human life. Biblical wars (and halachic wars were necessarily brutal) offered the enemy an opportunity to repent. They had a limited window to do so and to extricate themselves from the fate of their people. Native Americans were masters of collective mass slaughter, torture, rape, all sorts of depredations, physical, sexual assault, etc. A code of barbarism and savagery. In fact, research shows that even the less violent tribes often retained a surprisingly rigid mastery of torture practices.
- Native Americans fled their origins in Siberia to find a new place to live- out of necessity. When necessary they displaced and killed other tribes. G-d GAVE us our land, and we were Divinely mandated to expel and kill. And Jews have always yearned for the one place sacred to us, Eretz Yisrael.
- Jewish tribes were mandated to maintain unity and brotherhood, despite the unfortunate reality of factionalism that existed throughout the history of the monarchies. Native Americans were defined by their brutal violence towards each other long before any European came to the land.
- Judaism appreciates nature as the creation of G-d. Native Americans venerated and worshiped nature. And contrary to the mythos of the ecological native, many tribes were destructive to nature. Judaism has a balance where man must conserve the world but still retain dominion over it. And worship of nature is what led early man to turn to the stars and planets as they descended into the abyss of idolatry.
- Native Americans society was cruel by any standard, and the violence they often meted out towards the ill and infirm was shocking. Judaism repudiates the cruel personality.
- Judaism is intellectual. Our halachic system is based on logic. Native Americans were creatures of impulse, even if it was contrary to their best interests.
- Judaism has never shied from documenting our less than stellar moments in history. The Torah and Talmud often record events that portray as us sinful, ungrateful, and generally belligerent to Hashem. Truth is never sanitized. Indian history is defined by politically correct pseudo-history and her advocates all have one narrative. White, raping, exploitative, Europeans. Good noble Indians.
- While the Native-Americans certainly contributed to our knowledge of fauna, flora, agriculture, building, hunting, their contributions pale to the contributions of the Jewish people, both in the realm of the sacred knowledge of Torah and individual contributions of Jews in general to medicine, education, arts.
- The Native-Americans world is largely gone, save for the reconstructed false image which shapes the modern narrative. The Jewish people will live forever.
There is one important commonality. Neither Jews, nor Indians, nor any people’s, are indigenous to anywhere in the world, since people are not frogs or plants. People are not indigenous. People conquer or they are conquered. People migrate. Like “native Americans” who came from Siberia. In truth, the term “native American” is a misnomer. Arriving earlier doesn’t make one MORE native. “Earlier” is unrelated to “original.” And many tribes slaughtered and expelled weaker tribes from regions. Were these tribes colonizing earlier denizens, or did they get a pass because they were indigenous? As Jews we differ because our conquests of Eretz Yisrael were Divine mandated and that is our sole claim to Israel.
Some people get upset because religious arguments offend them. Some have made careers selling exotic stories of “indigenous Jewry”. They never engage in discussion because theirs is not a rational claim. So they pout and scream and hurl obscenities in response to reasoned arguments. Too damn bad. Those self-serving arrogant hasbarites who don’t like it, can go beat on a tom-tom to mollify their frustration or take some peyote and go on a lonesome vision quest.
Many Native Americans suffered as a result of European conquest, but they surely gave it as good as they received it. At the end of the day, they were beaten by the same force that allowed the strongest among them to dominate and destroy the weaker. Superior force. Injustices and atrocities were not the sole domain of Europeans. Their own history was one of aggression, and a collective understanding that the strong dominated the weak.
Chalk up this perverse association to social media and 21st Century hasbara. Truth and integrity have no voice when popularity and political correctness is what brings in the money. And this is the root of the problem which explains the “hasbara machine’s” close ties with messianic missionaries who throw millions of dollars at them, as well as secular strains which eschew anything Jewish for contemporary liberalism.
If one wants truth, one turns to Torah. For falsehood and populist pandering, one turns to the well-oiled Jewish hasbara (public relations) machines whose true interest is contrary to Torah.
Indigenous rights activists have nothing to say to us Jews about our identity. They know nothing of Torah and thus they are irrelevant to any Jew who believes in Divine claims. Jews who engage in this magical thinking betray an irrational approach to life that has zero commonality with rational Torah thinking. The essence of Judaism is the rejection of the primitive and the pagan. Native American culture embraced and cultivated these very things. The Am Kadosh has no commonality whatsoever with those who worshiped nature and readily resorted to wanton murder. And it is perverse to make this foolish comparison.
We have Torah, they have totems.