While Standing (Six Feet Apart) on One Leg:
A Torah for a Virus: 3/18/2020
All trying times give rise to some insightful humor. During the Middle Ages in the time of the bubonic plaque, Jews were suspected of creating the disease and attacked because relatively few Jews got sick. One part of the accusation is true, however. Jews did get relatively less sick than their gentile neighbors. Why?
The Church in most towns, which was the most important governing body, decreed that Jews must always be ‘wandering’ and not a part of gentile society. They were put in ghettos and could not live in same space as most of the people. And, because they were shut away and apart, they had their own water supply and the environment that made rats thrive outside the walls was, by and large, missing inside the Jewish quarter. (At least that’s what I have heard). And, since it was believed that the Jews poisoned the water supply, they could not leave the ghetto. This is what kept them relatively healthy.
So where is the joke?
When the bubonic plague struck Europe and Jews were forced to stay in the walls of the ghetto and not permitted to be among gentile society it was natural that fewer of them got sick. As hundreds in each village perished from the disease and the Jews remained relatively unscathed, the locals concluded that the Jews are responsible, especially since none died. The situation was terrible especially since if the mob would come into the ghetto they would massacre thousands. The Jews prayed for a miracle. And it happened: in the middle of morning services a man came running into the temple and loudly proclaimed: ‘Wonderful news, Jews!! A Jew has died of the plague!!”
Funny on one level. Not so funny on another.
We are so much more sophisticated than that today. We are scientific. We don’t blame Jews for diseases anymore…
Explain this:
An aide to the Mayor of Chicago said in 1990 that the reason why the black community has such high instances of AIDS was because Jewish doctors deliberately put it in their blood supply.
The Palestinian Authority routinely makes statements accusing the Jews or “the Israelis” of poisoning their water, their chewing gum or poisoning the air. (After the Gazans started burning tires on the border with Israel last year, they accused Israel of changing the direction of the wind and poisoning the air of Gaza. And then they had the chutzpah to demand that Israel send them more tires for their vehicles!)
And in this historical moment, here are the enlightened statements of world leaders:
On March 6, Fatih Erbakan, head of Refah Party and the son of former prime minister Necmettin Erbakan, was reported to have said in a speech: “Though we do not have certain evidence, this virus serves Zionism’s goals of decreasing the number of people and preventing it from increasing, and important research expresses this. Erbakan said: ‘Zionism is a five-thousand-year-old bacteria that has caused the suffering of people.'”
Of course, the Iranian government can always be counted on to tell its people that the Jews created the virus and are waiting until so many people are sick since they have also created the cure and will sell it. Gevalt.
And, of course, some Jews blame themselves: A hardline leader of the Israeli religious right, Rabbi Shlomo Aviner, wrote on Sunday that the coronavirus is a rectification for humankind’s arrogance and haughtiness, and a rebuke to moral relativism….Almost all the non-Jewish culture has stopped. Academia, the Education Ministry, leisure culture, travel abroad…”
Nothing new to see here. Whenever something terrible happens, of course, someone has to blame the Jews. Let’s see: there were no Jews in the WTC on 9/11. The Zionist Movement teamed up with Hitler to create Israel. Jewish banks routinely manipulate the world banks to maintain control over every aspect of every person. Blah, blah, blah….
So in the middle of this virus, we are seeing where the light does not shine: so many may pride themselves on their insight, their brilliance and their erudition. But it is a light that only they see. It is a light of hate that too many bring out during dark times. And it blazes brightly when the ignorant and superstitious make science a boogey-man.
Blaming Chinese people for the virus is still going one. Blaming the Jews is just beginning. I don’t know who will be next, but one thing is for sure, there is always someone else.
Have we really evolved from the MIddle Ages?
To rephrase the joke in a sick way: ‘Wonderful news! Jews have died from the virus!” Really, though, it won’t matter. The virus is just the latest reason to hate Jews. And so it goes…
