Looka Them Jews

In a previous post I wrote some words about how I was blogger of no consequence, first on MySpace and then on Xanga. Shortly following the abrupt end of my time on Xanga, that site itself went the way of MySpace, obliviated into an irrelevance foreshadowed by the irrelevance of its existence in the first place. After some time had passed, in my restlessness I sought for and found a small group of Xangan refugees, even some of my old friends, on WordPress.com. WordPress doesn’t have the same sort of community-building vibe, or at least during my brief time blogging there I wasn’t able generate even a weak shade of my former online experiences.

On WordPress I wrote some intense accounts of the demise of my second marriage, interspersed with some humorous ponderings. One of my comedic posts was titled “What’s Up with the Jews?” It was mainly about how I didn’t understand the whole issue with the Jews that I was always hearing about in the history stories, on the news, and among internet conversants. In that entry I wrote a few dry but funny jokes. The punchline of one was that if the Jews were so rich why do they walk to church? Another one was about when I would drive down the road on a Saturday with my kid in the back seat, and we would see groups of whatever kind of Jews they were walking to synagogue, all in black with the tassels and hats and the beards and curls, and I would have an urge to say, “Hey, looka them Jews,” but I wouldn’t. Because my kid in the back seat… Anyways, I thought that was pretty funny.

Everyone’s Doing It

I was uneducated about the question of why Jews of the diaspora were targeted for expulsion from or extermination by various hosting countries around the world. When I saw one of those graphics with a bunch of bankers each stamped with a juden star, I was not impressed. Everybody know them Jews was pretty smart with money. I knew plenty of Jewish friends whose families were modestly middle class and apparently not exceedingly well-connected. I admired the brilliance of the IDF’s tenacious defense of Israel, and Mossad’s cloak and dagger exploits were legendary — real-life 007 Nazi-killers. The fact of US support meant nothing to me, since my tax dollars were being spread all around the world for reasons — Israel was just one country among many, and not even receiving the largest sums — according to NPR.

My understanding of the Jews has evolved over time. Up until fairly recently, I thought that people who call themselves Jews actually have some type of lineage traceable back to the Jews of Israel, to the bloodline of the tribe of Judah, I guess. I knew they were scattered all over the world, that some north Africans were considered Jews, and that some were still native to the region that became modern Israel. That, or they were genuine ad hoc converts to Judaism and those could be from any race supposedly.

In a nutshell, Jews could be a race and/or a religion. Given that formula, it might be easier to describe who is not a Jew. Someone who is not a Jew would be someone who claims neither ancestral Jewish lineage, nor practices Judaism — mangled penis or not.

What Do the Jews Do?

None of that explained why the Jews had such a terrible reputation throughout the world. I had heard some people say that the Jews killed Jesus, therefore it must be the Christians who fostered the hatred. That is not what was taught at my church, which held that Jesus was killed by the Jews and Romans together, according to the will of the Father and His plan for salvation — blame is shared by all mankind. But I had picked up the Christ-killer narrative from various sources over the years, probably just as likely from NPR as any other.

I think the main explanation we always heard was that Hitler just hated the Jews because they had too much of the German money and business, and they wouldn’t stop being Jews no matter what — he thought they were subhuman and since it was too tough to kick them out of Germany he had his Nazis round them up, take all their stuff, and kill them. The Hitler story was so well known that I eventually got sick of holocaust movies — I skipped Schindler’s List.

But Hitler’s hatred of Jews didn’t explain the story we find in Fiddler on the Roof which touches on the fact of periodic seasons of pogroms against Russian Jews. At another point, I learned that in 1492 (interesting year) Spain had sent all its Jews packing — Hitler wasn’t even around then. In fact, Jews have a storied history of expulsions from cities and states over the last two thousand years .

Add to these accounts the very ancient tales of Jews always getting taken over and forced into slavery, exiled to distant lands, of the Roman occupation and eventual exasperated destruction of the Jewish state, and then in modern times leading up to World War II, constant conflicts between Muslims and Jews in the pre-Israel Palestinian territory, and I get the sense that the Jews just can’t catch a break.

Who’s a Jew?

The first part of my realizations about what’s up with the Jews has to do with a new understanding about who “the Jews” really are. My first education about the identity of Jews in the modern era came in the form of information about the Khazarian Mafia, the story of which claims that all Jews of the “ashkenazi” persuasion — apparently comprising most of modern Jews in existence today — are descendants not of any bloodline related to original Middle Eastern Jews, but rather they originated as forced converts of a conquered population known as Khazars who inhabited a region near the Caspian Sea.

The legend is that these Khazars made a killing by luring in weary traders and other travelers, then slaying them and robbing their corpses. Some accounts state that eventually their neighbors got fed up with the disruption of vital trade routes, militarily put a stop to it, and then demanded Khazars convert to Islam, Christianity, or Judaism, or die. The history that the Khazars largely elected to convert to Judaism and eventually migrated to areas around Germany is hotly contested, and the truth seems to be that there is a significant gap in the historical records, and/or that certain individuals or groups are ideologically invested in promoting their agenda into its reading.

Not much is known of the original religious practices of the Khazars, which may have included forms of blood sacrifice. The legend of the Khazarian Mafia basically states that the diasporic Khazars merely cloaked themselves in Judaism while proudly but secretly retaining the violent, bloody ethos of their heritage. As a “semi-nomadic” people expelled from their homeland, they transplanted their wicked practices among the Islamic and Christian nations of Europe during the Dark Ages. This “Jewish Exilarchy” was/is centrally governed from an ever-changing location as their refugee populations were purged from city after city because of their relentless pursuit of wealth through illicit activities. The legend further suggests that despite these hardships, the mafia has been able to successfully infiltrate and insinuate itself into business and governing power structures throughout Europe, Asia, and the Americas.

Before I discuss illicit activities that seem to get the Jews in trouble with their hosts, I want to spend some more words describing other aspects the so-called Jewish identity that have so shaken my former understandings of it.

I have joked on the antisemitic-adjacent and vaguely Christian-adjacent social media hellhole website that is Gab.com that my favorite Jew is Jesus. The idea that Jesus was not Jewish was never even acknowledged as a possible question by my church, nor had I ever heard such an assertion made in any seriousness until about a year ago. I certainly had not given it any thought. Whether or not Jesus was a Jew is a topic for another billion words elsewhere, but the point of bringing it into doubt posited the notion that the hatred of Jerusalem’s Pharisees and Sadducees for Jesus was more ethnic than ideological. Even though the Samaritan woman at the well calls Jesus a Jew, though he was raised in the Jewish tradition, and even though Pilate called him “King of the Jews,” he was from Galilee and Galilee was “of the Gentiles.”

This might be confusing in pursuit of my topic of the true heritage of modern Jews. After all, Jew or not, what does Jesus have to do with the Jews of today? I think my point is that the Biblical identity of the Jews is unclear. According to that record, as a group of people in a region under Roman occupation and governance, the Jews in Jesus’ days were deeply divided along ethnic lines. Jerusalem’s Jews, the Samaritans, those out of Galilee, it appears upon closer scrutiny that they were all Jews! And yet only the lineage of the tribe of Judah was accounted for among Israel’s original twelve tribes. The lineage of King David is key to the heritage of Jesus as the Messiah in prophecy, but King David himself never actually ruled over a unified kingdom of Israel, nor did his son Solomon.

Regarding ancient Israel’s twelve tribes, few historical assertions are on shakier ground. All of the tribes but one (allegedly) were scattered to the corners of the earth while the Biblical and historical records of their fates falter abruptly and without annotation — any claims made by their so-called descendants are merely claims.

Historian chronologist Jason Breshears of Archaix raises the possibility that the Jews of the Exodus tradition, the ones who call themselves Jews after the alleged mass flight from captivity in Egypt, were actually not Israelites at all, but rather their jealous enemies — by name, the Edomites who warred with the ancient Israelites and drove them out of their lands. Breshears suggests that much later, in the days of Nehemiah and Jeremiah, this bunch re-wrote all of the oral traditions of the tribes of Israel as their own, inserting as Exodus a purely fictional tale, adapted from an ancient mythology, of the prophet Moses. Interestingly, this investigation also brings up the possibility that Yahweh, the god of the burning bush, was a foreign god or even a demon.

What does this contemplation of Jewish identity lead me to? Questions. Do modern-day Jews truly claim the Biblical heritage of the Hebrews? Or is their lineage occult, not at all Biblical? If Jews can have a full spectrum of observance of Judaism from devoutly Orthodox to non-religious and negligently atheist, then is the question of Jewish descent not pivotal to any claim thereof? It seems so to me, so I ask again, what is the precise nature of that claim? Is it out of bounds to suggest that “Jewish” lineage is not Semitic, but rather Turkic? Is it antisemitic to wonder if their professed faith, Judaism, is not in fact their faith but another? Who is qualified to certify or deny it? If any organization claiming to represent Jews rejects the claim of an American black man, by what authority? By what line of reasoning?

As for their religion, I thought at one time I understood what it was, but now I am not so sure. There are many sects, many scriptures, many grades of Judaic observance, and, as I mentioned, one need not even be affiliated with any religious practice, vows, or beliefs to call themselves Jews. And this leads to a circular logic wherein one need not be religious if one has the heritage, but the heritage seems to have no concrete definition that can be verified by anyone outside of the group. And what is that group?

The deeper I look into these questions, the more I questions I have. Were the true Israelites and their religion erased from this world four thousand years ago? Were they replaced by lesser impostors not only once but two or three times in the span of those millennia? What then is the significance of so-called Jewish ancestry?

Is Christian affinity for “the Jews” as their Abrahamic predecessors entirely misplaced? This question is amplified when I consider some of the reasons Jews have historically faced repeated expulsions by the natives of the lands that hosted them.

Surreptitious, collusive control of banks, media, and governments all aside, critics of Jewish influence on modern society cite all manner of undesirable and criminal behaviors. Two practices commonly attributed to Jews that are relatively simple to discuss are usury and pornography.

Usury as Usual

The lending business practice of charging interest against the borrower, called usury, is actually a grave Biblical sin. However, a distinction is made in the regrettable book of Deuteronomy that Israelites (Jews) may charge interest to non-Israelite (gentile) borrowers. Throughout the ages of antiquity, Christian and Islamic cultures of the Old World observed strict prohibitions against usury, per the dictates of their scriptures. According to certain accounts, diasporic Jews in these lands repeatedly and compulsively flouted anti-usury laws, corrupted banking and lending practices that saddled natives with debt significant enough to draw widespread ire. While a popular narrative has been that hosting cities and countries were jealous of the Jews being too smart with money, the flipped perspective is that Jews practiced illicit, predatory lending that negatively impacted lives and whole economies. For theses reasons and others, it is alleged, Jews were repeatedly purged from society. Jewish usury in central banking does appear to be one of Hitler’s most potent complaints.

Personally, whenever I hear that usury is forbidden I wonder how banks are supposed to do business without lending and charging interest. Without it, what incentives do banks have to exist? I suppose other models of banking and lending might be possible — for example would a flat fee for holding deposits, replacing interest against loans, be considered usury? At any rate, I just thought that loan interest was the normal and most efficient mode of banking.

I cannot recall having heard sermons against usury in the church of my childhood — although they certainly taught that taking on debt was highly undesirable, if not sinful. Throughout my life I have heard neither Protestants nor Catholics speak out against interest lending. In fact, for all of my religious learning and contemplations, the idea of usury as a sin only occurred to me in the last couple of years, as I was reminded of it. That this practice associated with the corrupting foreign influence of Jews resulted in their persecution fascinated me.

I understand problems with usury. I’ve been bankrupt before. Currently my modest credit card debt for a single card costs me as much as a monthly car payment in interest. On top of that I’m still paying off my college student loan, even though I graduated more than twenty years ago! I’m not blaming the Jews, but debt interest sure has got me jammed up. On the other hand, what would my life be like in a society without lending? What would my society be like if usury was suddenly outlawed and interest debt forgiven? Maybe a lot of Jews would take a loss?

The Porn Problem

A discussion of Jews and pornography is more limited in scope and historicity. While connections might be inferred into or even solidly linked from various salacious, illegal business activities throughout Europe and the Near East in prior centuries, including tales of depravity in Germany’s progressive Weimar Republic that culminated in Hitler’s condemnation of Jewish influences, this is a tenuous line of reasoning for my purpose here. Likewise, all types of materials and modes of distribution that might be categorized as “pornography” are too broad to bring into consideration here. Erotica in literature, in artwork, and in theater can be traced back through the centuries and across many cultures, but whether they are titillation or pure obscenity, such products are mere abstractions.

I limit my commentary to what I have learned about photographic and filmed pornography that captures actual people involved in sexual activity, and mostly that which has been mass-marketed since the 1970s in print, in cinema and video, and online. (An added exception to this filter might include the recent growth in popularity of a subgenre of Japanese-influenced art known as hentai that does seem to occupy the same sort of mass-produced, mass-consumed space as photograph/film-based pornography, to depict and idealize in a manga/anime style fetishes and fantasies which cannot be photographed — although I don’t think Jews can be blamed for tentacle porn.)

The question of the harm of pornography to individuals and/or to society is not a simple one. Liberty-minded people cite free speech and freedom of the press as foundational for permitting pornography in the face of fierce moral opposition largely on religious grounds. On the point of liberty I am inclined to agree. However, I see a line, as many do, between acceptable and unacceptable types of pornographic content.

Content that photographically captures scenes of actual rape, torture, and murder of children, adults, or animals is clearly criminal — crimes of aggression that violate individual sovereignty. As such they should not be produced, distributed, or viewed. Unfortunately, this type of content does proliferate, and as a black market commodity it has a reputation for fetching premium prices. This is the darkest of feedback loops: the shamefully hidden secret perversion spirals into the hidden addiction that drives demand supplied by the most unscrupulous merchants.

Still, if it was just a matter of differentiating legitimate erotic pornography from pedophilia and snuff, the matter would be as simple as laws that prohibit filming such crimes, and laws against distributing and obtaining those materials. But whether we like it or not, illicit pornographic materials relentlessly encroach upon the same distribution outlets as legal pornography and occupy them with significant overlap.

This problem bleeds into another complicating dynamic: human trafficking. The degree to which a person is trafficked can be viewed on a spectrum, where the most egregious form is obviously criminal and falls squarely into the categories just mentioned, but the most innocuous form includes young, desperate, unwitting people caught up in a degrading and dangerous enterprise akin to forced prostitution that they find difficult to extract themselves from. It is rumored that the pornography industry is a pipeline where the most naive and vulnerable participants enter as “porn stars” only to disappear into slavery and worse once the shine wears off. If true, such schemes surely earn stacks of cash for the dealers of flesh and souls.

In an ideal situation, one that does not nor will it ever exist in reality, all people performing in pornography are willing participants and are free to go their own way when each job is complete. It does not appear this can be achieved without strict, heavy-handed regulation — the very type of regulation that liberty-minded people usually reject on general principle. Therefore, as far as I can see it, human trafficking in the pornography business is bound to continue and even proliferate, unabated. This is just one major issue with pornography, but it is one that absolutely jams up the pro-porn argument.

Another, more insidious harm caused by pornography is spiritual damage done, first to the participants, and then to viewers. It is more difficult to make this argument when there are a full range of experiences and outcomes to support or refute the argument. Anecdotes supporting one side or another can be tossed back and forth all day. Proponents of pornography proclaim, “It’s just sex!” They can cites studies claiming the benefits of viewing pornography. Opponents can cite counter-studies showing opposite results and regale us with uncomfortable testimonies of triumphs over porn addiction.

I used to favor the benefits of viewing pornography, although I myself did not fixate on such activities with much compulsion.The more I noticed how sad, traumatized, empty, and unwilling the participants appeared, specifically the actresses, the less erotic it was for me. Perhaps my position is not a popular one and without troves of supporting data. But over time I have to agree with those who proclaim that pornography is bad for young men, especially as a chronic habit, that it destroys many of the actresses, and therefore overall pornography has a corrupting influence on society. It’s more bad than good, in my opinion.

The Circumcisions Behind the Scenes

Given that I’ve made my case for the ill of pornography in society, I return at last to the question of Jewish involvement in the modern pornography industry. Although in prior decades I never heard such claims, I have heard it many times in recent years. In my research, I did not find the strongest of confirmations. Prominent pornographers Hugh Hefner of Playboy magazine and Larry Flint of Hustler were not even remotely Jewish. Biographical information about the founders and owners of top-ranking pornography websites do not contain references to Jewish heritage. However, this does not mean Hefner, Flint, and other pornographers did not receive substantial Jewish backing, only that I’m not interested enough to research further.

The best information on the subject of Jews in pornography I found began with “Triple Exthnics: Nathan Abrams on Jews in the American porn industry,” originally published in Jewish Quarterly (UK), [print edition Volume 51, 2004 – Issue 4] 2005, p. 27-30. My search for the full article led me to dagobertobellucci.wordpress.com, and an article titled “Jewish Dominance in the Porn Industry” that includes the entire text of the JQ article, followed by a many additional articles pasted below covering Jews involved in pornography businesses and related scandals including salacious news, human trafficking, and a preponderance of child pornography arrests. I cannot attests to the veracity of the items in the collection and I note that the final entry is an item about the 2003 Girls Gone Wild scandal that begins with the dubious annotation, “[Is Joe Francis Jewish? Francis is a common enough Jewish surname].”

The original JQ article opens with this claim: “[T]here’s no getting away from the fact that secular Jews played (and still continue to play) a disproportionate role throughout the adult film industry in America. Jewish involvement in pornography has a long history in the United States, as Jews have helped transform a fringe subculture into what has become a primary constituent of Americana.”

Jews playing a disproportionate role — where have I heard that before?

The article explains that Jews are deeply involved both as performers in and producers of pornography in America’s modern era. It also states, “Many erotica dealers in the book trade between 1890 and 1940 were immigrant Jews of German origin.” The article then goes on to trace a lineage of prominent Jewish pornographers from the prewar era all the way up to revolting fat slob porn star Ron Jeremy. A notable mention includes Al Goldstein, the publisher of Screw magazine, quoted as saying, “The only reason that Jews are in pornography is that we think that Christ sucks. Catholicism sucks. We don’t believe in authoritarianism.”

Are Jews really responsible for the scourge of pornography in America? The answer seems to be: Not entirely, not exclusively, but in some ways, certainly. The Jewish Quarterly article shows secular Jews happily taking a lion’s share of the credit, even for general smut peddling out of prewar Germany. But outside of that article I couldn’t find stronger evidence that Jews organized to intentionally initiate and foment pornography supply and demand market dynamics.

Of course, it doesn’t seem possible that Jews can be blamed for pornography everywhere. For example, the Japanese boast an impressive list of monetized vices, and among those is their own thriving pornography industry, in which hentai is only the latest fad. A far as I can tell, Jews can’t be blamed for Japanese pornography, gambling, or prostitution.

I Have Questions

Is it possible that an Old World Satanic organized crime syndicate comprised of Khazarians masquerading as “Jews” uses pornography as one of many illicit prongs of attack in its tireless power play to gain control over western culture through subversion of moral codes and demoralization of the native populations? I would say it is possible. Our world is replete with outrageous possibilities. Do I think it is likely? As I have already stated, the more questions I ask, the more questions I have, and the more incisive and the more urgent my questions become. I don’t like where these questions lead me, and I don’t like the answers I find as I go.

One of my best friends is a Jew. We’ve known each other since the early 1980s. The closeness of our relationship has dwindled over time, especially more recently as my political and religious views have shifted dramatically back towards those held by my father and I have soundly rejected liberalism and leftist ideologies. In addition to his Jewish heritage through his father, he claims German and Scottish blood, I suppose through his blond-haired blue-eyed mother. Since his parents divorced, and as I understand it Jewish lineage is supposedly maternally traced, I guess he’s still Jewish because bar mitzvah or something? I haven’t asked about that.

Once I was discussing my return to Christianity and he started rambling about circumcision. Awkward.

I have a lot of questions for this old friend of mine. The problem is, he lies all the time. He lies to make himself look better, to make it seem like he knows more than me, or to deflect when he is wrong about something. I think he will lie to me whenever I ask a question that makes him uncomfortable. He’s extremely smart and talented, and he commands a great deal of mundane knowledge. He was the person who introduced me to the occult and pagan ideas, who said he wrote a research paper on Aleister Crowley in grade school. But when I asked him about the Talmud he played dumb. As if. A Jew who attended synagogue and was educated in reformed Judaism, who knew a great deal about esoteric mysticism and practical magic didn’t know the first thing about the Talmud? I was insulted. Will he ever tell me the truth?

What conclusion do I draw from this? I think if one has questions about the Jews, don’t bother asking a Jew.

So I ask you, my reader, whether you are a Jew or not:

What’s up with the Jews?

db!