“Tyranny has a very soft touch” warned Rabbi David Algaze of Congregation Havurat Yisrael in Forest Hills in a speech on Wednesday, October 28. Rabbi Algaze quoted Alexis de Tocqueville, the 18th century French philosopher: “Despotism does not break wills, but it softens them, bends them, and directs them.”
“Black Lives Matter is a noble sentiment; the Black Lives Matter movement is not.” One of their goals stated on the Black Lives Matter official website is “the disruption of the Western prescribed nuclear family structure. This is Marxism.”
“We are seeing here a change of values.” “They are forcing us to say that everything we think about is wrong, we are misogynists, we are racist white supremacists.” They seek the “demonization of America,” trying to defund the police, are pro-BDS, hate Israel, and are anti-Semitic.
Black Lives Matter and Islamists “are united in the destruction of Western society but disagree what to replace it with.” Their movements are similar to Mao Tse Tung’s Cultural Revolution in China, who “sought to eradicate all customs, all habits, the establishment, and life in the country.”
“Today we have new concepts: white fragility, white supremacy, micro aggressions, all this to force us to believe that all of us were wrong from the beginning. Now we need to kneel, apologize, and obey.”
Islamists and gays “do not go together,” yet LGBTQ aligns itself with Linda Sarsour. “Both of them want the destruction of America, the destruction of the Western society.”
A high school teacher taught how all lives matter. “For that statement, to teach them to be kind to one another, for that statement, the teacher was forced to apologize profusely.” “This is what is demanded of us. If we sin against the orthodoxy, you must confess your sins, you have to kneel, and even then you might not be forgiven.”
“I’d like to suggest that we need to go into realizing and reasserting our biblical values. We cannot believe that justice and morality lies on the side of the Black Lives Matter or anybody else.”
“When G-d creates man, He doesn’t create a white man or a black man or a yellow or green man. He creates one, Adam – from him we all come. And so we can say ‘all lives matter’ because we’re all creatures of G-d.”
The Bible says, “Do not favor the poor as it stands in court within which all people must be treated equally. And justice does not carry an adjective. There’s no social justice. There’s no economic justice. There’s only justice.”
Rabbi Algaze said people can’t say anything “the official line does not like.” “We all have to think the same way. This is exactly what Nimrod wanted to do with the Tower of Babel.”
“Government and its allies are trying to impose on us this kind of totalitarian uniformity of thought. John Stuart Mill says, ‘Whatever crushes individuality is despotism.’”
“The world owes the Jews, a great deal: of Bible knowledge, many things,” said Rabbi Algaze, but their greatest gift is stubbornness. “The Jew refused to accept blindly what others believed. However much public opinion imposed upon him, was against him. The implacable stubbornness of the Jew stood out against the attempt of the church and the state to enforce a uniformity of belief.”
“We need to be strong and courageous,” to speak up without fear of attack, “affirming the fundamental humanity of all people. Ronald Reagan said, ‘Evil is powerless when good people are not afraid.’”
More than 60 people attended Rabbi Algaze’s 25-minute speech on Zoom and Facebook Live. The video can be seen on Congregation Havurat Yisrael’s Facebook page.
In an email blast on Motza’ei Shabbos, October 31, titled “Personal Message,” Rabbi Algaze said it is “morally incumbent…to appreciate and express gratitude to President Trump” for moving the American embassy to Jerusalem, repealing President Obama’s deal with the Iranians, and helping Arab countries and Israel make peace.
“Joseph Biden refused to condemn the violence from Antifa and Black Lives Matter.” What worries Rabbi Algaze most is “the influence of people around Biden whose goals are unknown to the public. Mr. Biden’s evident weakness foretells that he would be unable to stand in the way of known haters of Israel as Ilhan Omar, the ‘Squad,’ and who knows who else is behind him.”
Rabbi Algaze posted a six-minute video on his Facebook page on Friday, October 30, saying that President Trump “has stood up for Israel, has made Israel stronger.” People born in Jerusalem can now have their passports stamped “Jerusalem, Israel” instead of just Jerusalem.
Joseph Biden has not said what his policies will be in the Middle East, except “he’ll return to the Iran deal” that allowed “Iran to become a nuclear power over time.” “Remember, once you give power to the government, the government doesn’t give it back,” said Rabbi Algaze.
By David Schneier
