Hobby Lobby: American Jews are missing the point,...Again.

מוצש"ק פר' נח תשע"ד

Times Of Israel: J'accuse, Hobby Lobby - No dreidels for sale here, ‘you people’
Chain of Evangelical-owned craft stores refuses to sell Hannukah items, is slapped with hostile online reaction

Gavriel Fiske, October 2, 2013

A chain of craft stores in the US has been accused of anti-Semitism for refusing to sell Hannukah-themed items, leading to an Internet backlash and calls for a boycott.

Hobby Lobby
(unidentified branch)

Last week, blogger Ken Berwitz posted that neighbors were reporting that a New Jersey branch of Hobby Lobby didn’t have any Hannukah or Jewish-themed merchandise for sale. He said workers asked about the omission replied, “We don’t cater to you people,” meaning Jews, and that including Jewish items would be against the values of the chain’s Christian owner.

Berwitz’s post generated a torrent of comments around the web, many of which called for a boycott of the chain, and was picked up by several news sites, including the Daily Kos, who reported on Monday that Hobby Lobby was monitoring its Facebook page to remove any posts about the issue.

A local news site reported Monday that a Hobby Lobby representative wrote to the mayor of Marlboro, New Jersey, where the store in question is located, and said that ”alleged comments made by employees are currently being investigated and will be addressed accordingly. These comments are in no way indicative of Hobby Lobby culture, the owners and the operators.”

Hobby Lobby, a Oklahoma-based chain of over 500 stores that, according to its website, operates “in a manner consistent with biblical principles,” is privately owned by Evangelical Christian businessman David Green. (Hanukkah is against "Biblical Principles?" Perhaps, because it is absent of their false deity/messiah.) (cont.)

(Tip Credit: Sharkskin)

Esser Agaroth (2¢):
Why are American Jews still fighting about these silly, little things? Don't they get it?

No matter how hard you try to be fully accepted as a "full" American in American society, you will never be. The U. S. A. is not your homeland. Israel is.

One of our (YOUR) greatest challenges is remembering that residing in galuth (exile, ie. not in Israel) is a punishment. As fantastic as we (YOU) are at rising to the challenge of succeeding, and even gaining respect in a Land which is not ours (YOURS), the strategies employed in doing so are based on assimilation, something we (YOU) have been attempting in every generation since [at least] 1400's Spain, and it has never worked. So, it is high time to try something new, and fail safe: Jews discovering what living within a a Jewish (not American) framework is, and then employing that as a strategy.*

Working through the mentality we have developed, due to the 2,000 years our (YOUR) people have spent in galuth is our (YOUR) greatest spiritual challenge, other than perhaps the acceptance that spirituality even has a place in our (YOUR) lives.

The ADL's and the AIPAC's only appear to be your "protectors." But, the reality is that they are keeping us (YOU) down,...down in our (YOUR) exile, preventing you from having any truly meaningful connection to our (YOUR) true homeland and heritage, the Eretz Yisra'el (Land of Israel) and the Torah.

Remember. The Almighty knows all.

He knows all about those nebachy (poor, poor) Jews who think that Hanukkah is a Jewish Christmas, and the most important day in the Jewish calendar. He's got to reach "you people" somehow.

And so should we.

Do not be embarrassed to ask questions about your heritage. If you feel like you're being put down for doing so, then ask your questions to someone else. You can also pose your questions anonymously to the countless Torah-based websites out there.

Try to remember the story of how the holiday of Hanukkah came about.

A group of Jews, led by Matityahu the Kohain Gadol (High Priest) at the time, living in the Land of Israel, were fed up with the assimilation of their (YOUR) brothers and sisters' assimilation into a foreign culture, and its effects on the Jewish People and Jewish Homeland as a whole.

They weren't going to take it anymore. They fought back. Not only did they defending their "freedom of religion," which so many American Jews are taught to fight for, even if that includes fighting for the right not to have any religion or particular beliefs at all. The main difference was that these Jews, the "Maccabees," were fighting for something truly Jewish, and within the only truly Jewish Homeland, not the U. S. of A., but Eretz Yisra'el.

This was a spiritual fight. The fight to live as Jews authentically, including control over Har HaBayith (Temple Mount), and the "right" to practice Judaism there, was intertwined with the fight for authentically Jewish control over the Land of Israel.

It was a fight against assimilation within Eretz Yisra'el.

Incidentally, the word Macabee is actually an acronym, מכב"י. It comes from a verse from the Song Of The Sea, sung in celebration after The Almighty divided the Red Sea, and saved us (YOU) from the pursuit of the Egyptian pursuit, after leaving Egyptian exile (ie. the first Passover).

מִי-כָמֹכָה בָּאֵלִם יְהוָה, מִי כָּמֹכָה נֶאְדָּר בַּקֹּדֶשׁ; נוֹרָא תְהִלֹּת, עֹשֵׂה פֶלֶא. (שמות טו,יא)

Who is like You, O LORD, among the mighty? who is like You, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders? (Exodus 15:11)

Maccabee is also Greek for "hammer," a strong message to those Jews who knew Greek, but not Hebrew.

And so, now that you know the story behind the story of Hanukkah, ask yourself what is more important, whether a Christian owned company carries Hannukah merchandise or not, or whether the Jewish People will not only survive, but will remember its heritage, and actually have a true Homeland in which to reside.

In other words, do you really want to be a part of the downfall of the Jews residing in the U. S.? YOU cry antisemitism, but the same ol' "write a letter, make it better" strategy does not go to the heart of the matter, if it ever did.

What good is it to find Hannukah merchandise, if you never knew what Hannukah was really about? Or that Pesah (Passover) is on a different level, or that there is a holiday called Shavu'oth, which never heard of before, because most years, Hebrew school ended before it arrived.

What good is it all, if you are being told that you're just a member of some religion, which you do not even believe in, and not a member of a people which has a Land of its own, even older than Sudan or France?

What good is it all, finding a Hanukkiyah (Hanukkah menorah), if you marry a non-Jew, and have been no solid reason why shouldn't?

What good is it all, if you're being lied to.

********

*A Jew by the name of Rabbi Me'ir Kahane hy"d talked about assimilation being one of the greatest threats to His solution was for Jews to learn about what it meant to exist and to live like a Jew, instead of like non-Jews. Instead of searching for acceptance and validation from the outside (co-dependence), he suggested that we (YOU) search for acceptance and validation from within.

I only mention him here, because his name seems to "scare" Jews away, due to the maligning of it by those very Jews, who have fallen victim to assimilation.