"Virtue signalling" is the term used to describe people who are intent to show off their "virtue"--especially to those who don't like them, and may even want to destroy them--because it makes them feel good about themselves. The behaviour can be found among those who may be described as liberal, and especially among those who may be described by the recently-popular term "cuckservative." A cuckservative is someone who claims to conservative, but considers it more important to be seen as not racist and/or not sexist by people who don't like him anyway, than to stand for any conservative principles. Submitted for your approval, the following example of liberal virtue signalling, as reported by Yaniv Pohoryles of
Ynet News,
February 10, 2017:
A London synagogue will devote part of its structure to the construction of living quarters for Syrian refugees, according to a BBC Arabic report.
The report, which has been circulated on Arabic social media pages, is part of a continuing initiative by synagogue members to provide aid to refugees from Syria. Currently—following fundraising efforts—synagogue members have begun construction on the section of the synagogue that will house the refugees.
According to the report, one family has already moved into the synagogue and community members are providing aid to other refugees by raising funds and financing temporary residences in London.
Operations at the synagogue are expected to continue as usual, including prayers.
The South London Liberal Synagogue had already launched a crowdfunding campaign, which tried to raise £50,000 for the cause.
Chair of the Synagogue Council, Alice Alphandary, told the Guardian that, "For me, this is a very personal subject. My father was a refugee in the 50s and now this is an opportunity to help the refugees of today."
The project itself is called "Araham's Tent," named after the story according to which Abraham's tent had four openings as an invitation to all. Alphandary added that "in Judaism, hosting is nearly a religious duty."
And this example, as reported by Andrew Friedman of
Tazpit Press Service,
April 13, 2017:
On the eve of the holiday of Passover, as Jews worldwide come together to remember the story of the exodus of the ancient Hebrews out of slavery, an Israeli rabbi and ethics scholar says the holiday demands attention to aspects beyond just remembrance of the Exodus, particularly this year with the plight of refugees around the world and the human crisis in Syria.
Rabbi Yuval Cherlow, chairman of the Ethics Committee for the Tzohar rabbinical organization and one of Israel’s leading experts on issues of ethics and Jewish law, has called upon Jews in Israel and around the world to use the Passover Seder as an occasion to inspire greater global awareness of the ongoing plight of a people just north of Israel’s border.
“When we read of the biblical commandment to remember the exodus from Egypt, the commandment requires that we personally feel as if we were personally liberated,” Cherlow said. “Seder night is a commemoration of our existence as a nation as we recognize how we left Egypt and came to the land of Israel. This recognition requires us to appreciate many lessons, one of which is that we too must empathize with the plight of other refugees.
“The horrific events of recent days and weeks, as we have witnessed atrocities against innocents, must call all people of conscience to respond. The Seder provides us that opportunity. At its core, the Seder is a night of faith in God as the ultimate force, who dictates the path of history and the fate of our people. That also has an impact on our perspective of other nations.”
Cherlow added that although virtually all competing sides in Syria’s civil war are also hostile towards Israel, the Jewish holiday of freedom demands compassion for the innocent victims of the fighting.
“On Seder night, we identify not with those who are committing evil but rather feel solidarity with those innocents literally caught in the crossfire,” Cherlow said.
The full text of the prayer (translated from the Hebrew by Elli Sacks) is as follows:
Master of the universe, who makes peace on high.
Though we are not accustomed to creating new formal prayers, we can no longer stand aside to look at the slaughter taking place in Your world and fail to pray. We know that both sides in this war are guilty of wanton bloodshed, and we are unable to keep silent when so many who are beyond the circle of conflict have fallen victim.
Oh Lord, we beseech You in prayer to arouse in the killers their basic humanity and evoke mercy in their hearts. Lead them to recognize that we are all created in Your image and that there are limits even to human cruelty. May You bring to pass what is written in Your Torah: “He who sheds the blood of man, by man his blood shall be shed, for in God’s image was man created.”
Grant us the wisdom to know how to act in this hour of distress, when the dark face of humanity’s evil inclination is once again fully exposed and we are unsure how to stand against it. Enable us to act with all our energies to prevent bloodshed in Your world, above all in the Holy Land and its environs, as it is written in Your Torah: “You shall not pollute the land where you are for blood pollutes the land; and the land will not expiate the bloodshed upon it, but with the blood of he that shed it.”
May God who makes peace on high, make peace upon us and upon all Israel, and let us say amen.
Columnist Dennis Prager is a Jewish American who fails to see the wisdom of Jews offering sanctuary to their enemies. As he states in his column of
March 7, 2017:
Last week, the Jerusalem Post and other news agencies reported that in a Paris suburb, two Jewish brothers wearing kippot (Jewish skullcaps) were attacked while driving their car by Middle Easterners driving another car.
According to a case report: "While the vehicle was in motion, the driver and a passenger shouted anti-Semitic slogans at the brothers that included 'Dirty Jews, You're going to die!' ... The vehicle forced the brothers to stop their car, and they were surrounded by several men ... The men came out of a hookah cafe on to the side street ... The alleged attackers surrounded the brothers, then kicked and punched them repeatedly while threatening that they would be murdered if they moved. One of the alleged attackers then sawed off the finger of one of the brothers."
Attacks on Jews in France and elsewhere in Europe by Muslim immigrants from the Middle East and North Africa, or MENA, are so common that for the first time since World War II, Jews in France fear wearing a kippah or a Star of David in public. So many French Jews are leaving France that two years ago, then-Prime Minister Manuel Valls gave an impassioned speech pleading with French Jews to stay in France.
It has gotten so bad for Jews in Europe that The Atlantic, a liberal magazine, recently featured an article titled "Is It Time for the Jews to Leave Europe?"
In Sweden, attacks on Jews in Malmo, the country's third largest city, are so common that Jews are leaving the city and the country.
Last year, the Jerusalem Post published an article about a Jewish couple that had lived in Sweden since the middle of World War II. Dan and Karla (not their real names) are Danish Jews who were smuggled into Sweden as children. Their gratitude for Sweden has been immense.
But they have now left their homeland, the country that saved their lives, to live in Spain. They lived in Malmo. In Dan's words, the immense saturation of Jew hatred in the city was caused by "the adverse effects of accepting half-a-million immigrants from the Middle East, who plainly weren't interesting in adopting Sweden's values and Swedish culture. ... The politicians, the media, the intellectuals ... they all played their parts in pandering to this dangerous ideology and, sadly, it's changing the fabric of Swedish society irreversibly."
The Post continued, saying, "Karla, who'd sat passively, occasionally nodding in agreement at Dan's analysis, then interrupted, saying, 'If you disagree with the establishment, you're immediately called a racist or fascist.'" (Sound familiar?)
The British newspaper The Telegraph recently reported: "Jewish people in Malmo have long complained of growing harassment in the city, where 43 per cent of the population have a non-Swedish background, with Iraqis, Lebanese and stateless Palestinians some of the largest groups. The Jewish community centre in the city is heavily fortified, with security doors and bollards on the outside pavement to prevent car bombs."
An article in the left-wing HuffingtonPost reached a now-familiar conclusion, saying: "Migrants streaming into Europe from the Middle East are bringing with them virulent anti-Semitism which is erupting from Scandinavia to France to Germany. ... While all of the incoming refugees and migrants, fleeing Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and other Muslim lands, may not hold anti-Jewish views, an extremely large number do — simply as a result to being raised in places where anti-Jewish vitriol is poured out in TV, newspapers, schools and mosques. ... 'There is no future for Jews in Europe' said the chief Rabbi of Brussels."
Yet, despite all this Muslim-immigrant Jew hatred, more than a thousand rabbis have signed a petition to bring large numbers of MENA Muslims into America, and virtually all Jewish organizations outside of orthodoxy and the Zionist Organization of America have condemned President Trump's administration for enacting even a temporary travel ban (one due entirely to security concerns) on immigrants and refugees from seven (of the world's more than 50) Muslim-majority countries.
How is one to explain the widespread American Jewish support for bringing in a massive number of people, many of whom will bring in anti-Jew, anti-Israel and anti-West values?
First, they are staggeringly naive believing, for example, that marching at airports with signs that read "We love Muslims" will change those Muslims who hate Jews into Muslims who love Jews.
Second, never underestimate the power of feeling good about yourself that exists on the left (the self-esteem movement originated on the left). And it feels very good for these Jews to say: "Look, world. You abandoned us in the 1930s, but we're better than you."
And third, when American Jews abandoned traditional liberal and traditional Jewish values for leftist values, they became less Jewish, less American and more foolish.
Just ask the Jews of Europe.
In addition to the reasons provided by Mr. Prager for the suicidal behaviour of his fellow Jews, I can think of another: Jewish anti-Christianism. Jews in Western countries have traditionally been regarded as outsiders and have often been persecuted, leading them to resent the majority culture, and to sympathize with those they regarded as oppressed minorities. Until fairly recently, the dominant religion of Western nations was some form of professing Christianity (and to Jews, Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and various forms of Protestantism are often seen as equally representing "Christianity"). Jewish organizations in Western nations resented the majority "Christian" culture, and wanted to weaken the Christian influence in their nations. Accordingly, they were prominent in supporting policies providing for increased immigration of non-Christian, non-Western populations into Western countries--not because such immigration would be good for these countries, but it would be good for the Jews.
The Christian influence in Western nations has waned to the point of virtual extinction--in no small part due to the increasing apostasy of professing Christian churches--but Jewish organizations have continued to pursue their anti-Christian agenda, apparently oblivious to the fact that the latest wave of
invaders migrants is composed of large numbers of Muslims who really don't like Jews, and are intent on turning their new places of residences into Muslim countries. As a result, it's hard for me to sympathize with Jews in Europe and elsewhere who complain about persecution and anti-Semitism when they've brought it on themselves to a large extent by supporting Muslim immigration. The increase in anti-Semitism in these countries, if not directly proportional, has certainly increased along with the increase in the number of Muslims allowed into these countries.
Mr. Prager, who describes himself as an ethical monotheist, has said in the past that he's one Jew who greatly fears a post-Christian America. Other American Jews in the media who express support for the rights of Christians include Michael Medved and his rabbi, Daniel Lapin. Nat Hentoff, despite being a professing atheist, has occasionally used his
column to bring attention to the persecution of Christians. In Canada, my friend Ezra Levant, through his media site
The Rebel, has done tremendous work in
supporting the legal rights of Christians in Canada, for which I'm grateful. Rebel reporter Faith Goldy continues to expose what the Muslim
invaders refugees are actually doing in Canadian schools--which the mainstream media refuse to report, because it doesn't fit their agenda.
Unfortunately, the people I've just mentioned see to be in the minority, while Jewish organizations continue to support policies that aren't good for Jews, Christians, or anybody else who loves freedom. Let us pray they see the error of their ways.
