The Jewish Democratic Council of America this week circulated a letter asking “Rabbis, Cantors, and other Jewish faith leaders” to “reject attempts to divide the Black and Jewish communities” by “spreading falsehoods about candidate for US Senate, Rev. Raphael Warnock.”
A group of 169 men and women responded, a move the JDCA hailed as “Rabbis Reject Attempts at Dividing Communities Around the Georgia Runoff Election.” I scrutinized the list to discover even one Orthodox rabbi, cantor, or other faith leader (I have no idea what that last thing means), but found none. Hence the headline about “Jewish clergies” rather than Rabbis.
Let’s unpack.
First, the fate of the entire Biden administration depends on the results of two Senate elections, both of them taking place on January 5, 2021, both of them in Georgia. The current balance of power in the senate is 48 Democrats versus 52 Republicans. It means that for the next two years, and possibly four, the Biden administration will not be able to generate any major legislation without bipartisan support – very much the way things stood during President Barack Obama’s last term in office.
However, should the Democrats be able to flip those two Georgia Senate seats, there will be 50 Democrats versus 50 Republicans, in which case Vice President Kamala Harris will add her vote, as President pro tempore of the United States Senate, to the Democrats in every singe legislation, appointment, and Jay-walking ticket.
One of the two Democratic candidates, the one who led the field on Nov. 3 but didn’t reach 50% – the minimum required by Georgia law – is Raphael Gamaliel Warnock, who has been serving as the senior pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta since 2005.
A video from 2018 shows Warnock delivering a hate-filled rant against Israel and the Trump administration on the occasion of moving the American embassy to Jerusalem. He repeated the lie about Israel taking away water from the PA Arabs, and accused the Jewish State of shooting “unarmed Palestinian sisters and brothers like birds of prey. And I don’t care who does it, it is wrong. It is wrong to shoot down God’s children like they don’t matter at all. And it’s no more anti-Semitic for me to say that than it is anti-white for me to say that black lives matter. Palestinian lives matter.”
Ten years earlier, in 2008, Warnock defended President Obama’s anti-Semitic preacher, Jeremiah Wright, on Fox News, saying, “We celebrate Rev. Wright in the same way that we celebrate the truth-telling tradition of the black church, which when preachers tell the truth, very often it makes people uncomfortable.”
On several occasions, Warnock described Jesus as a “poor Palestinian prophet” and a “Palestinian peasant.” Besides the blatant lie, the Democratic candidate from Georgia also shows he doesn’t know his history. Roman Emperor Hadrian changed the name of Judea to Palestina after repressing the Bar Kochva revolt in 135 CE. And, of course, with the same toxic statement, Warnock also denied Jesus’ Jewish identity and origin.
In 2019, Warnock signed his name to a statement comparing Israel to “previous oppressive regimes,” suggesting the “heavy militarization of the West Bank” was “reminiscent of the military occupation of Namibia by apartheid South Africa.”
In their letter, the 169 Jewish clergies wrote: “As rabbis and religious leaders, we recognize and respect the devotion to his Christian faith that underlies Rev. Raphael Warnock’s strong support for Israel and his partnership with the Jewish people.”
And so, as happens in these situations, the debate over an anti-Semitic minister from Atlanta became yet another illustration of the rift inside the Jewish community in America, with Israel serving as the litmus test dividing traditional Jews from their post-Zionist brothers and sisters.
The Warnock 169 use the reverend to channel their own views on Israel, the country that rejects their new Judaism and won’t let them share in the Kotel Plaza real estate: “Rev. Warnock recognizes that being a true friend also means being a truth-teller who does not shy away from hard conversations, and he has made no secret of his strong reservations and concerns over Israeli settlement expansion, which may impede prospects for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”
This is tantamount to your mom and dad having a fight and dad calling in the non-Jewish neighbor to support his position.
Then they simply lie to try and correct the damage this anti-Semite’s record has done to him: “Rev. Warnock has made clear that claims that he believes Israel is an apartheid state are ‘patently false.’ In his own word, ‘I do not believe that.’ Rev. Warnock has made his views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict clear. He has stated, ‘while I am deeply concerned about injustices impacting the Palestinian people…I know that no singular country’s actions are perfect, including Israel’s — and yet the country is a true friend and our strong, democratic ally in the region.’”
All of which is a lie. The videos are out there, and there, and there…
Rabbi Ruth Abusch-Magder, Rabbi Ellen Nemhauser, Rabba Melissa Scholten-Gutierrez, Darshanit Miriam Udel, from Atlanta, GA, it’s OK to want to give Joe Biden a fighting chance in the Senate, but I suspect that even if you put together all the lipstick in all your boudoirs in all of Atlanta, GA, it won’t be enough to paint a smile on this pig.