JAHG-USA:
Bi-Weekly Newsletter of Judaic Theocracy

Week of 21 Cheshvan, 5767 / November 12, 2006

Editor: Boruch (Bryan) Ellison

"Issues of World War III" Survey

"What should be the Jewish and Hasidic Gentile response to the memory of former Spanish ruler Francisco Franco?" All respondents favored continuing to honor Franco, as opposed to the plans of the current Spanish government to phase out and dismantle all public honors. Most of those answering the survey question also chose to remove the Christian elements from those honors. There were no "other" answers, and only a single additional comment that essentially repeated that person's choice.

Factual Background:
In 1936, a coalition of Anarchists, Socialists, Communists, and other revolutionary radicals, grouped under something known as the "Popular Front," seized power over Spain largely through massive electoral fraud. Taking advantage of Spain's economic weakness and political instability at that time, they moved quickly to consolidate dictatorial power while legitimate Spanish authorities were still complaining about the cheating. The Communists within the coalition quickly rose to the top and began purging all leftists who would not strictly obey the Communist party line, while political opponents were rounded up and illegally executed.

Within weeks, the new Communist regime was establishing an all-pervasive secret police complete with torture chambers, concentration camps, and weapons for extra-judicial murder on a large scale. Mass murder followed, along with expropriations of businesses and other private property, looting of the national treasury and sending much of that plunder to the Soviet Union under Stalin, and public blasphemy and mass destruction of religious practice and institutions. Dead bodies were dug up and desecrated, religious people and clergy were rounded up and locked inside churches where they died when the buildings were torched, and street mobs of Communists rounded up innocent civilians for summary trials and execution.

As the chaos multiplied, Soviet generals and top military and intelligence officers arrived in Spain, where they personally took charge and directed the anarchy. Soon shipments of Soviet armaments, including guns, bullets, and tanks, were arriving to bolster the regime.

The only force left in the country that could still mount a challenge to the new dictatorship was the military. Hesitating until it was almost too late, some officers finally began a rebellion to overthrow the regime and restore the rule of law. Command of the Spanish patriotic army fell to a reluctant General Francisco Franco, who abhorred military intervention but realized there was no other way to save Spain.

President Roosevelt blocked the United States from sending any aid to Franco's army, so Franco was forced to turn elsewhere for armaments to offset the Soviet military aid going to the regime. Some limited aid was provided by Benito Mussolini, the ultra-Marxist dictator of fascist Italy at the time, and a lesser amount by the National Socialist (Nazi) regime of Germany, both pretending to want to help Franco against the Communists. But Adolf Hitler and his Nazi officials were then secretly working closely with Josef Stalin's regime in the Soviet Union, an alliance that became public just three years later. So the Italian and German forces provided little more than nominal "assistance" to Franco, instead working mainly to help the Spanish Communists consolidate their power while stalling for time and keeping Franco ineffective. In the end, Franco and the Spaniards had to fight on their own.

So at first the war was going in the Communists' favor, and Franco's forces seemed doomed. But miraculously, Franco and his men gradually began turning the tide against superior odds, and by 1939 the Communists and their Soviet commanders found themselves badly defeated — much to their incredulous surprise. The country was liberated, though only after the Communists had murdered hundreds of thousands and had laid waste to most of the country.

Shortly after Franco liberated Spain, the Nazi regime of Germany established an open alliance with the Soviet Union, and both governments jointly invaded Poland later that year and launched World War II. By 1941, the anti-Semitic stands of the Nazi and Soviet regimes were beginning to take a new form: the systematic Holocaust of annihilation of Jews throughout Europe. The Soviet Red Army began machine-gunning Jews by the tens of thousands, while the Nazi SS troops began rounding up other Jews and placing them in concentration camps.

By this time, Franco realized the true nature of the National Socialists, and he swung into action to save as many Jews as possible. He personally gave orders and supervised the drawing up of lists of tens of thousands of Jews in France and Morocco who were coming under Nazi control and faced imminent doom, and he had the Spanish government issue papers identifying all those Jews as Spanish citizens. Having placed those Jews under Spanish protection, he proceeded to threaten the Nazi regime that he would break Spain's neutrality and join the Allies in declaring war on Germany unless those Jews were released to safety in Spain. Reluctant but afraid of Franco's threats, the Nazis did, in fact, allow those many thousands of Jews to go free, and they were saved from the Holocaust.

Spain maintained its neutrality through the end of the war, thus preventing the Axis Powers from gaining access to that strategic land. After the war, it was Franco's government that tried to send supplies and armaments to the Hungarian people during their brave 1956 uprising against Soviet occupation, but he was blocked by the Eisenhower Administration in America. Franco finally passed away in 1975.

Nevertheless, Spain was rebuilt and developed into one of the world's leading capitalist, industrial economies. Repeated attempts by the Communists to destabilize Spanish society and once again come to power have continually failed. Despite subversive, often openly Socialist governments, Spain continues to receive Divine blessing. In other words, the nation has received at least 70 additional years of life (otherwise it would have fallen completely to Communism in 1936 and would never have recovered).

Spain's current government is led by a President who "formerly" belonged to the Communist Party, and who has filled top positions with fellow leftists. They're currently in no position to bring down the government and restart the chaos, but they are certainly trying to destroy the memory of widely popular Franco in the hope of weakening anti-Communist sympathies in Spain.

Relevant Torah Principles:
1) The Torah authorizes Jews to form alliances with gentile governments, even idolatrous ones, that fight against or protect from the enemies of the Jews. On this basis, the Alter Rebbe (founder of the Chabad Hasidic movement in Russia) allied his Jewish followers with the Christian, somewhat anti-Semitic Czar in order to defeat the monstrously evil Napoleon Bonaparte and the French Revolution he represented. This does not, of course, imply any endorsement of Christianity or any other idolatry, but is purely for the purpose of defeating a common enemy.

2) The Torah further instructs Jews to support whatever legitimate (i.e., non-Communist) gentile government rules over them, for that government protects Jews. Pirkei Avos ("Chapters of the Forefathers") 3:2 mentions, for example, the obligation to pray for the peace (stability) of gentile governments.

3) Non-Jews, of course, are obligated under the Noahide Laws (the commandment of Justice) to establish and maintain a system of orderly law. This includes taking up arms and fighting, when necessary, against Anarchists and Communists who plunge the system into chaos.

4) The Lubavitcher Rebbe has further noted that gentiles have an additional obligation to help protect Jews from their enemies, for the Jewish people is the "priesthood" for the entire world; it is specifically through the Jews that gentiles receive their knowledge of G-d's Law and the substance of their mission. And today, when the enemy of the Jews — Amalek — is also the enemy of all mankind, it is doubly incumbent on gentiles to fight Amalek.

Analysis:
The fact that Franco's purpose in leading the revolt against the Communist regime was to fulfill the Noahide commandment of Justice may itself have been a major factor in receiving G-d's blessing for success (although, as a Christian, he certainly did not know about the Noahide Laws as such). But undoubtedly the larger merit was the fact that, less than five years later, he would play an instrumental role in saving tens of thousands of Jewish lives from the Holocaust. For these reasons, G-d intervened with miracles to save Spain and grant victory to Franco, and He has blessed and protected Spain for decades since.

Without question, Jews and Hasidic Gentiles stand in solidarity in honoring Franco's memory and his legacy.

But it would also be an excellent idea to divorce that legacy from the Christian trappings that surround it. Franco's memorials are often composed of Christian symbolism, including a fancy church carved into the side of a mountain. Thus Jews and Hasidic Gentiles should also fulfill their obligation to proselytize gentiles away from Christianity into the Noahide Laws, and thus ultimately free Franco's memory from that unnecessary idolatry.

And now for this week's survey question:

Should more opportunities be opened up for women to serve in the military, including in combat positions? (1) We should aggressively recruit more women into the armed services in all positions. (2) Women should be able to serve, but not in combat. (3) Women should not be allowed in the military at all. (4) Other

If the above links don't work, send your response to survey@noahide.com and manually type in your answer.

Only one answer per e-mail address will be accepted; only e-mail addresses on our subscription list are eligible. Please send your input by Tuesday, November 28th, 2006, 12pm PST.

THE HALL OF SHAME…
Have Some Jewish Leaders Betrayed the Torah?

A small number of "refusenik" rabbis, and a large number of rabbis endorsing JAHG-USA's PLO-defunding campaign, remain unprofiled in our newsletter. But we've decided to suspend our "Hall of Shame" and "Hall of Fame" features — for the time being, anyway. By now, you've already read numerous such profiles, and the story is nearly always the same: Those Jewish leaders who refuse to sign the PLO-defunding Proclamation never have any legitimate excuse, and sometimes they even agree with the JAHG-USA campaign. And those who do sign (who greatly outnumber, and often out-rank, the "refuseniks") have positions of leadership and authority that speak for themselves. So we don't see any pressing reason to continue these repetitive, time-consuming features, unless something unusual comes up or a reader asks about one of these leaders.

You can see a complete list of JAHG-USA endorsers and "refuseniks," together with their affiliations and the dates of their decisions, at our PLO-defunding web site. The list includes those we've profiled in this newsletter, plus many that we haven't.

By now you get the point. Most Jewish leaders, when asked, do sign our Proclamation and thereby declare that everyone — including you — is obligated to get involved in the campaign today.

You know what you have to do.

Letters to the Editor

(Part 1 of a letter with several questions regarding Hasidic Gentile religious observance):
• "…I read that Noachides may not keep Shabbat, nor even call it 'Shabbat,' but they may call it a 'Thanksgiving to [G-d].' If this is the case, may we still light any candles and have our Friday night meal, along with challah and wine? May we say 'hamotzi' without the handwashing, and what about 'borei p'ri hagafen'?…" — LW.

Our response: Without getting into all the sources and details (unless someone wants to ask more specific questions about this), we'll just give the following points as a rundown of the answers:

• Gentiles are expressly forbidden by Torah to "keep" the Shabbos (Sabbath), meaning a gentile may not "rest" or refrain from any particular activities — as opposed to Jews, who are commanded to refrain from a long list of activities on Shabbos. This means that Seventh-Day Adventists, for example, are violating the Noahide Laws by resting, even though they don't rest with nearly the same strictness as Jews.
• On the other hand, gentiles are allowed to commemorate and celebrate the Shabbos, much as Jews do — in fact, according to at least one major rabbinical sage (the Kli Yakar), gentiles are positively required to do so.
• We know of no reason that gentiles couldn't refer to the Shabbos as "Shabbos" (rest), even though they don't themselves rest on that day. Whoever proposed changing the name of the Shabbos to some "Thanksgiving" or the like sounds like an improper source.
• Among the gentile observances of Shabbos would be the lighting of candles on Friday night in the manner of Jews, except that no blessing may be said over the lighting. It would also include the special meals of Shabbos, on Friday night and Saturday daytime, just like for Jews. These meals can, and probably should, include wine and bread (although the concept of "challah" probably has little application to gentiles, so it doesn't need to be a bread called "challah" — although, for that matter, a Jew also doesn't need to use the type of bread called "challah").
• It is appropriate for gentiles to say all the proper blessings over food, including over bread ("…hamotzi…") and over wine ("…borei p're hagafen"). However, it isn't yet clear whether those blessings can be said over unkosher bread, wine, or other foods (i.e., foods acceptable for gentiles but not kosher for Jews). So until we can get a clear, reliable answer from a rabbinical authority on this issue, I don't know whether or not to recommend those blessings for gentiles. But certainly, if the food is kosher by Jewish standards, there's no question a gentile can, and should, say all appropriate blessings.
• The Jewish ritual hand-washing done in connection with saying the blessing on bread has no application to gentiles (it's related to the concept of ritual purity, which doesn't apply to gentiles). A gentile could always wash his hands, but there's no point in doing it in the Jewish ritual manner (unless he's eating at a Jewish home) — and, in any case, a gentile would not be allowed to say the blessing over the hand-washing, even if he does it for reasons of politeness in Jewish company.

To be continued…

Send your letter to the editor to newsletter@noahide.com.

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