Opinion

In December of last year I wrote a column outlining what I think would happen if the Mueller report came up with no evidence of collusion with Russia. Here is an unedited excerpt of that column: “If the report comes back with no proof that Donald Trump was involved in collusion with Russia during the 2016 campaign, the left will still believe he is guilty and the right will be convinced he’s innocent. In these days of ‘making the data say what you want it to say,’ it’s much easier to manipulate a narrative than numbers. Since we already do it with numbers, it shouldn’t be so difficult to do it with the Mueller report. The report will undoubtedly show many wrongdoings by the Trump campaign, and even if there is nothing in the report showing collusion, Democrats will still have the opinions of ‘well, he didn’t collude, but I knew he did something.’”

January 27 has been designated as International Holocaust Remembrance Day, as a day the world vowed never to allow anti-Semitism and hate to occur again. Yet, it’s been 75 years since the liberation from the Shoah, and one would think that the world would have learned a lesson or two in how to keep hate from raising its ugly head. But that is not the case. Hate and anti-Semitism have spiked all over the world. There was a time when those who harbored negative feelings against Jews understood to keep them to themselves. Now things have changed, unfortunately, for the worse. People seem free to spout their ugly venom publicly without any conscience or remorse. Attacking Jews is now socially acceptable across every ideological spectrum.

Last week, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has confirmed close to 400 individual cases of measles in 2019. CNN reported that this is the second-largest number of reported cases since 2000, when the disease was declared to be eradicated. Here, in the Jewish community, we often hear about cases in our communities of individuals traveling to Israel and unfortunately bringing back the virus with them. However, these cases are not restricted to the Jewish community. The CDC reports that in addition to New York and New Jersey, measles outbreaks (defined as three or more cases) are ongoing in California and Washington State. Individual cases have also sprouted in 10 other states across the country.

They say that “timing is everything.” I have always believed that, and that is why I am always quite nervous and apprehensive of anything that is happening to Jews and our community during the Three Weeks and especially during the Nine Days, knowing that this time in the Jewish calendar doesn’t bode well for us. It is historically the season of bad tidings for the Jewish people. I look forward with a great sigh of relief when Tish’ah B’Av is over and done with, and we have come out of it unscathed.

In Aalst, a small city northwest of Brussels, Belgium, the Carnival parade, which takes place on the Sunday before Lent, is one of the main events of the year, where people are made fun of and drunkenness is the order of the day. But this year, the floats presented were especially distasteful. One float carried two giant figures of Orthodox Jews with pei’os and large hooked noses sitting on bags of money. Another group of people paraded with white hoods and robes depicting the Ku Klux Klan. This is supposed to be funny, but I don’t see any humor in the depicting of Jews in that manner.

For more than two years and more than $25 million of taxpayer’s money, the country has been taunted with the notion that President Trump was in collusion with the Russians with regard to the 2016 elections. The Democrats had hoped that the findings of the Mueller investigation would prove the president unfit for office and impeachment proceedings would take place. But the Mueller report found no such thing. Despite the 448 pages explaining this, the Democrats went at it again this past Wednesday with hearings by the Judiciary and Intelligence Committees of the House of Representatives. Democrats had hoped Robert Mueller would say that he would have charged President Trump with obstruction of justice were it not for Justice Department guidance instructing that a sitting president may not be indicted. But Robert Mueller was not up to the task. He was seen stumbling through questions and at times unclear about the contents of his own much-heralded report. Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe said, “Far from breathing life into his damning report, the tired Robert Mueller sucked the life out of it.”