Landmark Event: Pope Will Address U.S. Congress

By Julio Severo

For the first time in the U.S. history, a pope will address the Congress, invited by Republican John Boehner and Democrat Nancy Pelosi.

When he speaks to American lawmakers September 24, Pope Francis will address a Congress that is 31 percent Catholic, well above the 22 percent of all the American population, according to a survey released last month by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center. Boehner and Pelosi are both Catholic.

“We’re humbled that the Holy Father has accepted our invitation and certainly look forward to receiving his message on behalf of the American people,” said Boehner, the most powerful Republican in the House of Representatives.

“Hearing his call to live our values, to protect the poor and the needy, and to promote peace,” said Pelosi, the most powerful Democrat in the House of Representatives.

Francis, an Argentinian Jesuit and the first pope from the Western Hemisphere, has made the cornerstone of his papacy calling on wealthy nations to “help the poor.”

According to the Associated Press, he plans to use his trip to the U.S. to urge world leaders to take bold steps to curb global warming. He also plans to release an encyclical on climate change, which he says is mostly manmade.

“He has a track record of challenging people,” said Mathew Schmalz, a religious studies professor at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts.

Even though many Republicans are not going to like what Francis will say about global warming, it is certain that many Democrats will not like some of Francis’ views, either.

He has condemned abortion and the use of artificial contraception, and called marriage between a man and a woman a “fundamental pillar” of society. However, different from John Paul II, he has not emphasized these issues. His focus has been fighting poverty.

Obama said he was eager to welcome the pope to the U.S.

“Like so many people around the world, I’ve been touched by his call to relieve suffering, and to show justice and mercy and compassion to the most vulnerable,” Obama said.

Obama’ sincerity is a problem. His administration and political life are rife with pro-abortion activism — a serious threat to the most vulnerable of the vulnerable.

America needs Christian leaders to challenge her directly to repent and abandon her wicked ways. Will Francis match this responsibility? It is not impossible to do so.

In the 1994 National Prayer Breakfast with President Bill Clinton, Mother Teresa straightforwardly condemned legal abortion in America and treated its innocent victims as the most defenseless and vulnerable in the U.S. society.

She challenged Clinton and U.S. authorities to protect these victims.

This was her last breakfast with Clinton.

It is doubtful that Pope Francis will imitate her courageous pro-life speech. In a 2013 papal visit to Brazil, when socialist Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff was considering making abortion legal — which she did —, Francis never mentioned abortion and child-killing to her.

Pope John Paul II, a true pro-life apostle, would have deserved the honor to address the U.S. Congress. Surely, he would focus on pro-life issues, as Mother Teresa did.

But what to expect from Francis? The U.S. media is certain, and glad, that he will focus on global warming and “fighting poverty.” In fact, he and Obama have now an alliance against global warming.

What to expect from the American Catholics who invited Francis? Nancy Pelosi’s socialist stances are well representative of Democrats, including Obama: pro-abortion, pro-homosexuality, pro-culture of death.

What to expect from John Boehner? According to the Daily Beast, Boehner said, “We won’t fight gay marriage.” Reportedly, he basically said the Republican Party will no longer stand in the way of gay “marriage.”

Such “beautiful” opposition! Democrats and other socialists advance their socialist evils, and “courteous” Republicans let them go forward.

Their mutual Catholic courtesy is now bringing Francis, a pope not prominent (as John Paul II and Mother Teresa were) in pro-life issues, but highly prominent and praised, including by homosexual magazines, for his “tolerance” — even for Islam. Last year he said that “it is wrong to equate Islam with violence.”

Be it as it may, Boehner’s courtesy to homosexual “marriage” is very troubling.

According to Scott Lively, “Ancient Rabbinical tradition holds that homosexuality, more specifically homosexual marriage, was the ‘final insult’ to God which caused Him to bring that Great Flood which only Noah and his family survived.” So, if Republicans are unwilling to fight homosexual “marriage,” what is their party good for?

Even Russia, criticized and condemned by Democrats and Republicans, by U.S. homosexual activists and right-wingers, by Pelosi and Boehner, by Obama and McCain, has successfully resisted homosexual “marriage” and other socialist evils. If the Republican Party is unable to do so, what is it good for?

Some Catholics in Brazil are rejoicing that America is “more Catholic” today. At least the U.S. Congress is more Catholic than all the American population.

They rejoice that for the first time in the U.S. history, a pope will address the U.S. Congress, invited by two prominent Catholics: John Boehner and Nancy Pelosi.

If a higher number of Catholics is enough reason for a sense of victory, they should rejoice over the U.S. Supreme Court, which began 200 years ago with Protestants, but today all of its Christian members are Catholic. The Supreme Court is no longer Protestant, but it is more pro-abortion and pro-sodomy than ever.

So, is there reason for rejoicing over Democrat Pelosi and her pro-abortion and pro-homosexuality obsession?

Is there reason for rejoicing over Republican Boehner and his unwillingness to fight homosexual “marriage” and other socialist evils?

Is there reason for rejoicing over a pope focused on global warming and highly praised by liberals around the world?

Will their Catholicism save America?

If a higher number of Catholics were a sign of hope, Brazil, the largest Catholic nation in the world, would be the most conservative and anti-Marxist country in the world. No. Marxist Liberation Theology is rampant among Brazilian Catholics, as it is rampant among Catholics in Latin America.

According to a recent BBC report in Spanish and Portuguese by Jaime Gonzalez, American conservatives see Francis as Marxist and radical environmentalist. No surprise: he is from Latin America. Actually, the BBC report was defending him against U.S. conservatives!

The pope’s socialist Catholicism is not different from the Brazilian Catholicism. So it is just natural for Pelosi, a Catholic socialist, to invite him. Yet, if American conservatives see him as Marxist, why does Boehner, the most powerful Republican in the House of Representatives, want him addressing the Congress? It only makes sense if you understand that the Catholic Republican does not want fight homosexual “marriage.” Is he, with Pelosi and the pope, considering fighting global warming too?

By the way, I have never rejoiced that Obama, Clinton and other liberal U.S. presidents are Protestants.

Their liberal Protestantism is part of the problems America has today just as liberal Catholicism is part of the problems of Brazil.

May Pope Francis and the U.S. Congress someday have his eyes open to see these problems.

With information from the Associated Press and The Daily Beast.

Portuguese version of this article: Evento histórico: papa falará no Congresso dos EUA

Source: Last Days Watchman

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Germany Clashes with Pope over Child Discipline

By Julio Severo (with Associated Press)

Germany has on Friday rejected as “unacceptable” the pope’s comments that it’s OK to spank your children to discipline them, as long as their dignity is maintained.

Francis made the remarks this week during his weekly general audience, which was devoted to the role of fathers in the family.

Francis outlined the traits of a good father: one who forgives but is able to “correct with firmness” while not discouraging the child.

“One time, I heard a father in a meeting with married couples say ‘I sometimes have to smack my children a bit, but never in the face so as to not humiliate them,’” Francis said.

“How beautiful!” Francis remarked. “He knows the sense of dignity! He has to punish them but does it justly and moves on.”

Verena Herb, a spokeswoman for Germany’s Families Ministry, told reporters on Friday that “there can be no dignified hitting,” and by comparing child discipline with violence, she added, “any form of violence against children is completely unacceptable.”

Completely unacceptable is what the German government does.

German parents who homeschool or spank their children can lose their custody. In contrast with its harshness with parents, Germany is extraordinarily lenient with bad behavior, in children and adults. While Germany was condemning the pope for showing support for child discipline, American Jewish Committee was criticizing a German court for concluding that two Muslims who firebombed a synagogue last July weren’t anti-Semitic.

Leniency for criminal behavior. Cruelty for parents fulfilling their family duties. This is the U.N. way in Germany.

One lunacy just leads to another. In Germany, corporal punishment of children is crime. Apparently, firebombing a synagogue is not crime or even anti-Semitic in Germany. The terrorist Muslims who firebombed the synagogue were sentenced to perform 200 hours of community work.

Leniency for terrorist Muslims, and no leniency for the pope and parents.

Not only Germany has not been harsh with the Vatican over child discipline, but the U.N. too.

Last year, the U.N. human rights committee “recommended” that the Holy See amend its own laws to specifically prohibit corporal punishment of children, including within the family.

In its written response, the Vatican argued that it in no way promoted corporal punishment, that the term “punishment” isn’t even used in the section of Catholic teaching and that according to Catholic teaching, parents "should be able to rectify their child's inappropriate action by imposing certain reasonable consequences for such behavior, taking into consideration the child's ability to understand the same as corrective."

All the nations that are signatory to the U.N. Children’s Rights Convention (CRC) are required to enforce the repealing of their laws allowing parents to spank their children. Because the Vatican is a signatory, it is not known if the pope will be able to keep supporting parents and their right to discipline their children.

Some 39 countries signatory to CRC prohibit corporal punishment in all settings, including by parents at home. Those nations range from Sweden and Germany to Brazil. Even the pope’s native socialist Argentina prohibits all physical punishment of children, including in the home.

In the United States, which is the only great Christian nation that, by pressure of pro-family evangelical groups, has not ratified the CRC, parents can legally spank their children as long as the force is reasonable.

With information from the Associated Press.

Portuguese version of this article: Alemanha entra em choque com o papa sobre disciplina de crianças

Source: Last Days Watchman

Recommended Reading:

Brazilian Nightmare: World Cup, Spanking and Abortion

When a father does not discipline his child

Ronald Reagan prediction coming true

Bill Federer

Ronald Reagan was born Feb. 6, 1911.

A graduate of Eureka College, Illinois, 1932, he worked as a life guard and then announced for radio stations in Iowa.

He became a sports announcer for Chicago Cubs baseball games and traveled with the team. While with the Cubs in California, Ronald Reagan auditioned with Warner Brothers, landing a contract doing “B films.”

He was a Captain in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II.

During his career as an actor he appeared in over 50 films.

He married Jane Wyman and had children Maureen, Christine (died a day old) and Michael (adopted).

Ronald Reagan was elected president of the Screen Actors Guild, switched from Democrat to Republican and eventually became Governor of California.

His second marriage, to Nancy Davis, 1952, gave them children Patti and Ron.

At age 69, he was the oldest person elected U.S. president, and 69 days after his inauguration, he survived an assassination attempt.

Ronald Reagan stated at St. John’s University in New York, March 28, 1985: “Government that is big enough to give you everything you want is more likely to simply take everything you’ve got.”

Ronald Reagan remarked to the Heritage Council, Warren, Michigan, Oct. 10, 1984: “Henry David Thoreau was right: ‘That government is best which governs least.’”

In his 1964 speech, “A Time for Choosing,” Ronald Reagan stated: “I suggest to you there is no left or right, only an up or down. Up to the maximum of individual freedom consistent with law and order, or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism; and regardless of their humanitarian purpose, those who would sacrifice freedom for security have, whether they know it or not, chosen this downward path.”

Ronald Reagan stated in Beijing, China, April 27, 1984: “I have seen the rise of fascism and communism. Both philosophies glorify the arbitrary power of the state. … But both theories fail. Both deny those God-given liberties that are the inalienable right of each person on this planet, indeed, they deny the existence of God.”

On March 20, 1981, at the Conservative Political Action Conference Dinner, Mayflower Hotel, Washington, D.C., Ronald Reagan stated: “Evil is powerless if the good are unafraid. That’s why the Marxist vision of man without God must eventually be seen as an empty and a false faith – the second oldest in the world – first proclaimed in the Garden of Eden with whispered words …’Ye shall be as gods.’ The crisis of the Western world … exists to the degree in which it is indifferent to God.”

On May 17, 1982, in a proposed Constitutional Amendment on Prayer in Schools, President Ronald Reagan stated: “Our liberty springs from and depends upon an abiding faith in God.”

President Reagan proclaimed: “Now, therefore, I, Ronald Reagan, president of the United States of America, in recognition of the contributions and influence of the Bible on our Republic and our people, do hereby proclaim 1983 the ‘Year of the Bible’ in the United States. I encourage all citizens, each in his or her own way, to reexamine and rediscover its priceless and timeless message.”

Ronald Reagan wrote in his article, “Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation,” The Human Life Review, 1983: “Lincoln recognized that we could not survive as a free land when some men could decide that others were not fit to be free and should be slaves. … Likewise, we cannot survive as a free nation when some men decide that others are not fit to live and should be abandoned to abortion.”

At the Alfred M. Landon Lecture Series, 1982, Ronald Reagan stated: “We can’t have it both ways. We can’t expect God to protect us in a crisis and just leave Him over there on the shelf in our day-to-day living. I wonder if sometimes He isn’t waiting for us to wake up, He isn’t maybe running out of patience.”

At Reunion Arena in Dallas, 1984, Ronald Reagan stated: “Without God there is no virtue because there is no prompting of the conscience. … Without God there is a coarsening of the society; without God democracy will not and cannot long endure. … America needs God more than God needs America. If we ever forget that we are One Nation Under God, then we will be a Nation gone under.”

In 1961, Ronald Reagan stated: “One of the traditional methods of imposing statism or socialism on a people has been by way of medicine. It’s very easy to disguise a medical program as a humanitarian project. … James Madison in 1788 … said … ‘There are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachment of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpations.’ … What can we do about this? … We can write to our congressmen and our senators. … Say right now that we want no further encroachment on these individual liberties and freedoms. … We do not want socialized medicine. … If you don’t, this program I promise you will pass … and behind it will come other federal programs that will invade every area of freedom as we have known … until, one day … we will awake to find that we have socialism. And … you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children, what it once was like in America when men were free.”

Source: WorldNetDaily, via Last Days Watchman

Articles on Scott Lively:

Ronald Reagan and Prophecy of the Holy Spirit

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Scott Lively on U.S. Foreign Policy

What's next for the Committee to Elect Scott Lively?

Scott Lively

As you know, I deplore the "political game" and will continue to speak to you plainly and act forthrightly regarding my views and intentions.

The day after the November election I switched my enrollment from Independent to Republican and am contemplating a run for Congress against Richard Neal.  I have not made a firm decision, but am leaning in that direction.   

There are a number of reasons why I would pursue Congress rather than a state office, but one of them is my interest in foreign policy and concern about the disastrous actions of the Obama administration around the world.  I am posting an article below that closely reflects my views on one aspect of the problem. 

I am especially concerned that the Neoconservatives (read Republican liberals) have aligned with the Obama administration re Russia and are jointly waging a campaign of anti-Russian propaganda designed to deceive conservatives into supporting a hot war with Russia.

This is a not only very dangerous game geopolitically, it is robbing social conservatives of their most valuable potential alliance in the world today.  American and Russian conservatives could today be cooperating together to roll back liberalism around the world.  Instead, the cultural Marxists of both major US political parties are trying to drive a wedge between us with the absurd lie that Russia is trying to revive the Soviet Union.  

Neither Russia nor its president are without flaws, and it is as impossible to defend them against a campaign of relentless criticism as is is anyone else but Jesus Christ.  That's the psy-ops mind game the elite media plays: a rhetorical blitzkrieg of misrepresentations, double standards and sophistry.

But if we ask the simple question "Which countries of the world and their current leadership align most closely to the goals of Biblical Christianity and of ideological conservatism?" it's a whole different ballgame.

If we rank the current leaders and countries of the world by that standard Putin and Russia rank high on the list -- certainly much higher than Obama and his version of America.  Indeed, is there any world leader speaking in defense of persecuted Christians in the Middle East like Putin has?  Is there any other "first world" nation standing up against the homosexual agenda like Russia is doing?     

In any case, please read the following article.  And if you're interested in keeping the Committee to Elect Scott Lively alive please consider making a donation here:   http://livelyforgovernor.com/donate.htm  We're still using the Lively for Governor website until we can raise funds to create a new site for 2015/16, but the donations go directly into our general fund.

I also have a new email account for this election cycle: CTEScottLively@gmail.com

Blessings,

Stratfor’s George Friedman and Realism in American Foreign Policy

By Gilbert Doctorow, Ph.D.

George Friedman’s December 2014 interview with the Kommersantnewspaper in Moscow, republished in English on Russia-Insider and other alternative media, has attracted considerable attention among pundits. The founder and CEO of Strategic Forecasting Inc., or Stratfor, an information and analysis service, made a number of remarkable assertions on the origins of the present confrontation with Russia over Ukraine which the chatting classes simply could not ignore.

Among the gems, we find Friedman’s matter-of-fact statement that the United States was behind the coup d’etat of February 21, 2014 which overthrew the democratically elected government of Viktor Yanukovich and brought to power the extreme nationalists and pro-Western forces of the Maidan. He tells us that in doing so the United States was merely looking after its national interests and serving its hundred-year-old policy of preventing any nation from becoming a hegemonic power on the European continent, which Russia was showing a potential and an intention to achieve.

The origin of U.S. misgivings over Russia, the determination that Russia had to be contained or disrupted or distracted by new security threats Friedman identifies with the Syrian conflict a couple of years ago, was when Russia demonstrated it was capable of exerting significant influence and acting contrary to American plans in the Middle East, an area of strategic importance.

His reputation for heading a “Shadow CIA” (Barron’s description of Stratfor) made Friedman’s stress on Realpolitik drivers for U.S. foreign policy appear to be the voice of Washington, telling us the real story of what is going on.

In Friedman’s analysis, there is no personal dimension. Obama is bound hand and foot; he is doing what any American president would have to do in the face of rising Russia. There is no “Tsar Putin,” no “mafia state.” Instead Friedman says simply: “It's a matter of the fundamental divergence of the national interests of two great powers.”

Friedman’s statements are all the more intriguing to commentators on Russian-American relations, because they run roughly in parallel with the explanations of the conflict which that consummate practitioner of Realpolitik, Vladimir Putin, gave repeatedly in his major public appearances from October to December last year.

The problem with taking Friedman as the ultimate insider is that what he is saying runs smack into the conventional wisdom of the chief actors in Washington responsible for formulating and approving our foreign policy, as well as for explaining it to the nation: the President, the presidential administration, the Secretary of State and his assistants, the U.S. Senate. That wisdom states flatly that Realpolitik, balance of power thinking are shop-worn remnants of the 19th and early 20th centuries. In this view, we have moved on to values-based foreign policy, otherwise known as Idealism or Liberalism.

This dogma was so entrenched that when the Russians made their move in the spring of 2014 to change European borders ‘by force’ (if we believe the Washington narrative) and take back Crimea, it sparked a debate among the court philosophers of our foreign policy establishment. Was Realpolitik making a comeback and putting in question the End of History beliefs of the Neoconservatives, the key promoters of Idealism?

In his contribution to the debate set out by Foreign Affairs magazine in its May-June issue - “The Return of Geopolitics” – Princeton professor G. John Ikenberry reminded us that the global architecture of financial, defense and other liberal institutions that the U.S. put in place at the start of the Cold War had continued to build out after the Cold War ended. They managed geopolitics as designed, maintained the American empire even if this was not understood by Francis Fukuyama’s followers, who saw a conflict-free future now that ideology-based conflicts had been resolved once and for all.

However, the September-October issue of FA carried an article by University of Chicago professor John Mearsheimer (“Why the Ukraine Crisis Is the West's Fault.”) in which Liberalism/Idealism is described as ideological blinkers of our political leadership that led us to misjudge the Russians on NATO and cross their red lines, leading to the present confrontation.

In the rebuttal to Mearsheimer in the November-December issue ofFA, Michael McFaul denounces Realpolitik generally, while Stephen Sestanovich claims that the US, like Russia, is not a pure play in its foreign policy, and that it follows national interest, meaning old-fashioned power politics, even if it talks a Liberal policy line.

What are we to make of this?

It raises the question of who really is in control of U.S. foreign policy. Is it the silent minority who believe in an interest-based policy, or is it the voluble majority who insist that democratic, free market values must drive policy, that peaceful relations are only possible between states that the U.S. qualifies as democratic and that other regimes must be overthrown.

And why does this matter? It is important because the Realist school, by its nature, looks for compromises in a context of ever changing alignments between states, whereas Idealism, with its emphasis on universal values, leaves no room for compromise and flux.

It would be very reassuring if the President, John Kerry, Samantha Power and Susan Rice spoke like George Friedman. However, they do not, and this is one of the reasons why serious observers of the present confrontation like Mikhail Gorbachev are expressing alarm over the possibility of the present Cold War moving into new directions, namely a hot war between the U.S. and Russia, with unforeseeable and possibly catastrophic consequences.

Source: Scott Lively email message, via Last Days Watchman

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New York Birth Certificates Now Let the Mother Be “Male” Or Female

By Julio Severo

“Most expectant mothers would laugh if someone were to ask them if they were a man or a woman because the answer may seem obvious,” said a Daily Mail report. However, a New York City Health Department form for parents requesting birth certificates now let new mothers decide if they identify as male or female.

With one “simple” question, Big Apple thinks it has the power to change the way nature defines motherhood.

The DailyMail reports that while the question over “sex” may seem shocking to some parents, it was created a few years ago because of homosexual “marriages” becoming legal.

Of course, this has nothing to do with helping mothers and their newborn babies and everything to do with helping the homosexual agenda.

Human imagination and perversion have no limit. What about if a mother sees herself as a giraffe? If the government accepts her lunacy, what are physicians and nurses to say after the childbirth when she asks them “what is my baby?”

Should their answer be: “It is lovely little giraffe!”?

Is it an impossible scenario? A man saw himself as a tiger and there was no hindrance for his unnatural wishes. He died as a “tiger”: he committed suicide.

Other lunatics do not commit suicide, but want, and even demand, society to commit suicide because of their immoral and unnatural desires.

If we accept the lunacy of men who think they are giraffes, tigers or female and the government stamp of approval for them, we are worse than suicidal donkeys.

The New York measure is just one step more in the moral suicide of a nation that was a haven for persecuted Christians, but today persecutes Christians, welcomes their Islamic oppressors and is a haven for sodomy tyranny and its militants, imposing it around the world.

Portuguese version of this article: Certidões de nascimento de Nova Iorque agora deixam a mãe ser homem ou mulher

Source: Last Days Watchman

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Man who thought he was a tiger has killed himself

Portugal approves citizenship plan for Sephardic Jews persecuted by the Inquisition

Barry Hatton

LISBON, Portugal (AP) — Five centuries after burning thousands of Jews at the stake, forcing them to convert to Catholicism or expelling them, Portugal is granting citizenship rights to their descendants as part of an attempt to make amends.

The Portuguese Cabinet on Thursday approved a law offering dual citizenship to the descendants of those Sephardic Jews — the term commonly used for those who once lived in the Iberian peninsula.

Like Spain, Portugal says its sole reason for granting citizenship is to redress a historic wrong.

"There is no possibility to amend what was done," Portuguese Justice Minister Paula Teixeira da Cruz said. "I would say it is the attribution of a right."

The measure is the latest step in Portugal's modern efforts to atone for its past harsh treatment of Jews, whose ranks once numbered in the tens of thousands, but have been reduced to only about 1,000 today.

In 1988, then-president Mario Soares met with members of Portugal's Jewish community and formally apologized for the Inquisition. In 2000, the leader of Portugal's Roman Catholics publicly apologized for the suffering imposed on Jews by the Catholic Church, and in 2008 a monument to the dead was erected outside the Sao Domingos church where the massacre of thousands of Jews began at Easter in 1506.

Jose Ribeiro e Castro, a lawmaker who was involved in drafting the legislation, sees the persecution of Sephardic Jews as a "stain" on Portuguese history.

"We wish it had never happened," Ribeiro e Castro said. "Given that it did happen, and that it can be put right, we thought we ought to do so."

"We regard it as an act of justice," Michael Rothwell, a delegate of the Committee of the Jewish Community of Oporto, said of the new law. He described it as "another important step toward reconciliation with the past."

The Portuguese Inquisition, established in 1536, could be more cruel than its Spanish counterpart. It persecuted, tortured and burned at the stake tens of thousands of Jews.

Source: Associated Press, via Last Days Watchman

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OLAVO DE CARVALHO AND THE INQUISITION

Jews prove critical to founding of America

Bill Federer

In 1492, Columbus was sent to find a sea route to India and China by the Spanish Monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella, who had just liberated Spain from 700 years of Muslim occupying forces.

Statue of Robert Morris, left, George Washington, center, and Jewish financier Haym Solomon, right, in Chicago

Spain then forced Sephardic Jews to flee.

Some Jews went to the Ottoman Empire, and some went to Portugal and then went to Amsterdam. From Amsterdam, some Jews sailed with Dutch merchants to South America, settling in the city of Recife. In Recife, they built the first synagogue in the Americas, Kahal Zur Israel Synagogue.

When Spain and Portugal attacked Recife, the Jews fled again.

Twenty-three sailed to Port Royal, Jamaica, then, on the French ship Sainte Catherine, they arrived in 1654 at the Dutch Colony of New Amsterdam, becoming the first Jews in North America.

Dutch Governor Peter Stuyvesant attempted to expel them, but they were allowed to stay, as the Dutch West India Company in Holland considered Spain and Portugal its main enemies, not Jews or other dissenters.

The Dutch were in a global contest with Spain and Portugal over possessions in Indonesia, India, Africa and South America, and so they wanted to quickly populate the colony of New Netherlands for its defense and profitability.

In 1663, the Dutch West India Company, while officially establishing the Dutch Reformed faith, instructed Peter Stuyvesant regarding Quakers “and other sectarians”: “Immigration … must be favored at so tender a stage of the country’s existence, you may therefore shut your eyes, at least not force people’s consciences, but allow everyone to have his own belief, as long as he behaves quietly and legally, gives no offense to his neighbors and does not oppose the government.”

Jews in New Amsterdam were not allowed to worship outside their homes or join the city’s militia.

Then, in 1664, British forces took control of New Amsterdam, renaming it New York, and Jews gained more freedom.

In 1730, Jewish citizens in New York bought land and built the small “Mill Street Synagogue,” the first Jewish house of worship in North America.

During the colonial era, America’s population grew to 3 million, with a Jewish population of around 2,000 in seven Sephadic congregations:

·         Shearith Israel, New York City, begun 1655;

·         Yeshuat Israel, Newport, Rhode Island, begun 1658;

·         Mickve Israel, Savannah, Georgia, begun 1733;

·         Mikveh Israel, Philadelphia, begun 1740;

·         Shaarai Shomayim, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, begun 1747;

·         Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim, Charleston, South Carolina, begun 1749;

·         and Kahal Kadosh Beth Shalom, Richmond, Virginia, begun 1789.

From the 3rd century on, the teaching of Rabbi Samuel in Babylonia, that “the law of the land is the law,” resulted in Jews refraining from trying to change their political situation. The American Revolutionary War was the first time since being exiled from Jerusalem that Jews fought alongside Christian neighbors as equals in the fight for freedom.

Jewish merchants, such as Aaron Lopez of Newport and Isaac Moses of Philadelphia, sailed their ships past British blockades to provide clothing, guns, powder and food to the needy Revolutionary soldiers. Some merchants lost everything.

An estimated 160 Jews fought in the Continental American Army during the Revolutionary War, such as Lieut. Solomon Bush and Francis Salvador of South Carolina, the first Jewish State Legislator, who was killed in a Revolutionary War battle; Mordecai Sheftall of Savannah was Deputy Commissary General for American troops, 1778; Abigail Minis supplied provisions to American soldiers in 1779; and Reuben Etting of Baltimore fought and was appointed U.S. Marshall for Maryland by Jefferson, 1801.

George Washington’s Jewish physician, Dr. Philip Moses Russell, suffered with him at Valley Forge.

President Calvin Coolidge recounted, May 3, 1925: “Haym Solomon, Polish Jew financier of the Revolution. Born in Poland, he was made prisoner by the British forces in New York, and when he escaped set up in business in Philadelphia. He negotiated for Robert Morris all the loans raised in France and Holland, pledged his personal faith and fortune for enormous amounts, and personally advanced large sums to such men as James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, Baron Steuben, General St. Clair, and many other patriot leaders who testified that without his aid they could not have carried on in the cause.”

In 1975, a U.S. postage stamp honored Haym Solomon, with printing on the back: “Financial hero-businessman and broker Haym Solomon was responsible for raising most of the money needed to finance the American Revolution and later saved the new nation from collapse.”

George Washington sent a letters to the Jewish Congregation in Newport, Rhode Island, and in Savannah, Georgia, stating: “May the same wonder-working Deity, who long since delivered the Hebrews from their Egyptian oppressors, planted them in a promised land, whose providential agency has lately been conspicuous in establishing these United States as an independent nation, still continue to water them with the dews of heaven.”

Ashkenazic Jews were few in America until a persecution in Bavaria in the 1830s resulted in many thousands immigrating.

President Martin Van Buren sent a letter to the Muslim Ottoman Turks requesting that they stop the killing of Jews in Syria, “on behalf of an oppressed and persecuted race, among whose kindred are found some of the most worthy and patriotic of American citizens.”

David Yulee, “Father of Florida Railroads,” was the first Jew elected to the U.S Senate in 1845. He was joined in 1853 by Senator Judah P. Benjamin from Louisiana.

Governor David Emanuel of Georgia was the first Jewish Governor of any U.S. state.

In 1818, Solomon Jacobs was Mayor of Richmond, Virginia.

Uriah P. Levy was the first Jewish Commodore in the U.S. Navy, fighting in the War of 1812 and commanding the Mediterranean squadron. He was responsible for ending the practice of flogging in the Navy. A chapel at Annapolis and a WWII destroyer were named after him.

When Jefferson’s Monticello home was decaying, Levy bought it in 1836, repaired it and opened it to the public. He commissioned the statute of Jefferson that is in the U.S. Capitol rotunda.

Samuel Mayer Isaacs, editor of the Jewish Messenger, wrote of the United States, Dec. 28, 1860: “This Republic was the first to recognize our claims to absolute equality, with men of whatever religious denomination. Here we can sit each under his vine and fig tree, with none to make him afraid.”

In 1862, the London Jewish Chronicle reported: “We now have a few words of the Jews of the United States in general. … The Constitution having established perfect religious liberty, Jews were free in America. … They … in a comparatively short time, prospered and throve there in a degree unexampled in Europe.”

At the time of the Civil War, the population of the United States was 31 million, including around 150,000 Jews. An estimated 7,000 Jews fought for the Union and 3,000 fought for the Confederacy, with around 600 Jewish soldiers dying in battle.

Jewish Union Generals were: Leopold Blumenberg; Frederick Knefler; Edward S. Salomon; and Frederick C. Salomon.

Jewish Confederate officers included: Judah P. Benjamin, Secretary of War; Colonel Abraham Charles Myers, Quartermaster General; and Dr. David Camden DeLeon, Surgeon General; Surgeon Dr. Simon Baruch served on General Robert E. Lee’s personal staff.

Major Raphael J. Moses was Commissary Officer of Georgia, and after the war began Georgia’s peach industry.

Whereas the first Catholic U.S. Army chaplain was appointed during the Mexican-American War, the first Jewish chaplain was appointed during the Civil War, Rev. Jacob Frankel of Philadelphia’s Congregation Rodeph Shalom.

On March 1, 1881, Tsar Alexander II of Russia was assassinated and a pogrom began against Jews, leading to over 2 million fleeing to America.

By 1916, the United States population was 100 million, of which 3 million were Jewish.

During World War I, President Woodrow Wilson wrote: “Whereas in countries engaged in war there are 9 million Jews, the majority of whom are destitute of food, shelter, and clothing; driven from their homes without warning … causing starvation, disease and untold suffering … the people of the U.S. have learned with sorrow of this terrible plight. … I proclaim Jan. 27, 1916, a day to make contributions for the aid of the stricken Jewish people to the American Red Cross.”

Source: WorldNetDaily, via Last Days Watchman

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Jewish Issues: A Clarification to Christians about Their Perception on the Jews