Kristallnacht in Paris!

Kristallnacht in Paris !:

To the left are photos of Kristallnacht in Germany in 1938 and a metro worker making repairs where hooligans broke the glass covering for an ad for the Paris Holocaust Museum's current exhibit "Nuit de Cristal." It is worse than ironic: "Kristallnacht" or "Night of the Broken Glass" marked the real beginning of the Holocaust!!

It was a night of horror in Germany as Nazis terrorized Jews and stormed through the streets breaking store windows, burning synagogues and rounding up 30,000 Jews to the concentration camps. One historian said "Kristallnacht came...and everything was changed." It marked a shift in persecution from political and social to physical, incarceration and murder.

Kristallnacht was Nov. 9-10, 1938, but the breaking of the glass over the remembrance of "Nuit de Cristal" in the Paris metro was just two weeks ago! It is indicative of the blatant anti-Semitism that prevails in Paris today.

The dumbing down of the print media

These two cartoons have caused a lot of controversy in the past weeks. The first one was highly objected to by the African American community because they felt the cartoonist was really depicting President Obama as the dead gorilla thereby bringing up the old racist stereotypes against African Americans and even promoting the President's assassination. Probably the cartoonist meant no such thing, but common sense should have dictated that this cartoon should not have been published by the NY Post. I support free speech but sometimes sechel (Yiddish for common sense) is a wiser path.

The 2nd cartoonist, Pat Oliphant, perhaps the most published cartoonist in the world, clearly meant to compare Israel to a jack booted, goose stepping, headless Nazi who was wheeling a piranna toothed Star of David in pursuit of Gaza depicted as a defenseless, small woman and child. No confusion as to his meaning - and it is anti-Semetic, anti-Israel, false, slanderous, unfactual (no one cares about that anymore when it comes to Israel) and without any merit. This is the exact type of cartoon used by the Nazi regime to distort the truth concerning the Jewish people so that the German population would be psychologically prepared for any outrages committed against the Jews.

Aren't thousands of rockets indiscriminately fired at Jewish civilians for years enough to warrant an outbreak of war against those who perpetrate such clear war crimes. And if you place your civilian population in danger by the way you fight and where you fight from, you are guilty of war crimes. The civilian deaths in Gaza should be laid at the feet of the leaders of Gaza. They should be tried for war crimes but all we hear are investigations of Israel's handling of the Gaza war. What would those who condemn Israel today have done if they were confronted with the real Nazi war machine? File genocide and war crime cases against the US and British forces when civilians died? Then, the world's survival was at stake. Today Israel's survival and survival of freedom in the world is at stake.

Yet, who has risen to defend Israel from these types of Nazi cartoonism similar to the outrage by African Americans to the NY Post cartoon? This is the time for Jews and Christians to speak out against virulent neo-Naziesque propaganda and send their protests to the newspapers that carried this cartoon and to demonstrate publicaly that they will not tolerate such baseless hatred. What if this cartoon were reversed and it was Gaza depicted as headless Mohammed firing rockets at defenseless Israelis? What would the reaction have been in the Muslim world? By the way, the old slander that the Jews control the media must not be valid given the wave of anti-Semetic articles and cartoons in newspapers and magazines these days.

What do you think? Shalom from Paris. David Schneier

Sunny skies, Anarchists and European style Communists

Yesterday thousands marched through the Place de Bastille of every labor and political persuasion, young and old out for a day in the Parisian sun. The T-shirt above was worn by a member of an anarchist group who strenuously distanced himself from the communists. He believed a very long strike was necessary to bring the government down, not a day strike under blue skies. I was struck by the many elderly people sporting communist banners and arm bands. I mentioned my years in Ukraine and what happened there under communism including the deliberate starvation or deportation of Ukrainian farmers causing the death of 7 million of them. But, that wasn't real communism they replied! Wishful thinking at best. It's so interesting to be in a country where people pay 40% of their income for taxes for social programs that pay them more than they were making if they lose their jobs, where the university costs about $900 a year, where there is full socialized medicine and where the people believe the government is not doing enough. So yesterday millions marched in France for more even though there is no more. I would not like to be an elected official here. At least when I was in the middle of the sea of marchers everyone was having a good time and there were no outbreaks of violence. Not sure how the day ended but everyone was back to work today as far as I could see. Shalom from Paris. David Schneier

Aux Barricades

The great rallying cry of the revolution of 1848 in France was "Aux barricades!" -- meaning workers should go out and block the streets against the government and its troops. Tomorrow is supposed to be another general strike of some sort in France to call on the government to help the workers. The photos show what it can look like in France. (Upper photo-Lionel Cironneau/The Associated Press, lower photo-BBC) I'll be out trying to get my own photos of this country stopping event.

According to Radio Netherlands Worldwide, "More than two million people are expected to take part in nationwide strikes in France on Thursday in protest against proposed cutbacks by President Nicolas Sarkozy. Trade unions and left-wing parties have urged workers to come out in large numbers in the second show of force against the government since January. Public services will be affected nationwide. The strikes will also disrupt commuter trains, intercity rail services and air traffic. International trains like the Thalys and Eurostar are planning to run as scheduled, although delays are not being ruled out. The strikes across 200 towns - which should last until Friday morning - come against a backdrop of mounting anger over job losses and factory closures."

Please pray for France and for Leslye and I as we try to get around in the city. Often the strikes go an extra day when the start on Thursday so that the workers can have a long weekend. Shalom from Paris. David Schneier

"...seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear." Mat 13:13

(Photo above:Veronica Weber,Palo Alto Weekly) (Photo left, Mathew Filipowich,The Medium Online)

Psalm 83:1-4 Do not keep silent, O God! Do not hold Your peace, and do not be still, O God! For behold, Your enemies make a tumult; and those who hate You have lifted up their head. They have taken crafty counsel against Your people, and consulted together against Your sheltered ones. They have said, "Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation, that the name of Israel may be remembered no more."

That seems a clear message for those who seek to eliminate Israel from the world map: The plans of man will not go unnoticed in Heaven and "He that keeps Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep."(Ps 121:4) In Europe few care if Israel is slandered for allegedly creating a modern Holocaust in Gaza or called a Nazi, apartheid state. Let's be clear: Israel was created to be Jewish homeland. It is home for 6 million+ Jews, and, therefore, anti-Israelism is also anti-Semitism. So why are students and faculties in Europe, Canada and the US turning against Israel while asserting that they are not anti-Semites - because it is easy for the confused liberal mind to separate the two (Israel and the Jews) when they are inseparable. But we who know better must clear a path through this world wide fog.

There is not one nation on earth that has had to put up with years of indiscriminate missile attacks and terrorism against its civilians which are war crimes and genocide, yet these acts carry little weight in the court of world opinion. Not one nation would show the restraint that Israel has shown and yet many university students and professors cannot see what is obvious. Therefore it is up to those who truly follow the God of Israel and those who know Yeshua as Messiah to stand up, proclaim the truth and take whatever is thrown against them in every arena of life. "Be strong and of good courage; do not be afraid, nor be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go."(Joshua 1:9)

Shalom from Paris. David Schneier

The Sorbonne - the beat goes on

A block away perhaps a thousand riot police surrounded the main buildings of the Sorbonne. All the doors were shut and manned by the riot police with 23 students inside effectively keeping out thousands of others. I ran into a couple of sympathizers one bearing a Communist insignia on his sleeve and Lenin pins on his lapel. He explained to me that France was in a perpetual revolution since their Revolution of old, and that the communists had the answers for the people. Right! Another guy said that the will of the people was paramount but he couldn't explain what that was. I told him I had spent 12 years in Ukraine and was not impressed by the after effects of Communism. I mean, Stalin starved, worked to death or killed about 7 million Ukrainian farmers in the name of farm collectivism. The pictures above depict the enormity of the Sorbonne, protestors banners ("The Sorbonne is a political animal."), communist sleeve patches and riot police. This activity is really a distraction from the real problems here but there are many who believe that the French Revolution should never end. Shalom from Paris. David Schneier

Takeover at the Sorbonne and Ukraine teeters on the edge

Publish Post

Tonight, just blocks for our home, students took over some classrooms at the Sorbonne to protest against rising tuition costs and some new restrictions on professors. I asked one student how much tuition was per year and they told me 700 Euros or about $875. If this sum is accurate they don't have a clue what a deal they are getting. I just read that GW University (room, board and tuition) is running about $50,000 a year! Not sure what the French professors might be in for - maybe some rules about working.

In Ukraine, protests begin to grow in Kiev about the state of the economy or lack thereof. According to the "(a) sign held by .... an unemployed plumber camped out with other antigovernment demonstrators here in the past week, summed up the pervasive frustration: 'Get rid of them all,' it said. (He) did not hesitate to take that further. "There will be a revolt," he said. "And people will come because they are just fed up." A picture of a run on a local bank and the desecration of the grave marker of Rabbi Schneerson (who before he died lead the ultro-Orthodox Lubuvacher movement and who was considered the Messiah by his followers) is a grim reminder that anti-Semitism always rises in hard financial times in Europe. Keep up the prayer for France and Ukraine. Shalom. David Schneier
[The bank photo and quote is by Joseph Sywenkji for the New York Times (3/2/09) and the grave marker photo is from CFCA, 2/26/09].