Jews and the Ukraine: The long history of the Homelessness and Wandering

What is on my mind, thanks once again to the two old guys who would not stop arguing ALL night in my brain, was the story of the Ukraine and just how many different versions of this sad historical tale regarding "Our" history as the "Wandering Jews" is being spread but this time live online on the internet and social media.

And of course, we have the age-old Jewish part of the story, but with an ironic twist. In that the "hero" and leader of the nation of the story involved is Volodymyr Zelensky a "native born " Jew.

Zelensky is THE prime example of the modern-day Jew of the Diaspora. An atypical secular non-religious "person of Jewish heritage" who is totally assimilated in the culture and society of his native land. 

Yet, Zelensky is NOT the first "court Jew", whilst in our long diaspora several Jews have achieved a place of prominence in the lands we have settled in. There have been several Jews who have achieved-been appointed or been elected to "high office".

What is happening of course is an immense tragedy of human suffering that is caused by festering hatreds based on historical differences between peoples. These same areas that were latter termed the "Pale of Settlement" have been an area contested and vied for centuries between the Germanic tribes and those who would become the Polish people and the Russians.

What IS THE twist is that in THIS war is taking place in what   was once "The Pale of Settlement" "Galicia" that historical area   where Jews fleeing the immense hatred of the Catholic Church in the aftermath of the Alhambra Decree in 1492 against the Jews were invited to live and where confined to by Catherine the Great.

The area of the Ukraine is a vast burial ground of millions of Jews who were butchered and murdered by the Einsatzgruppen of the Nazis and their over eager local collaborators. The very presence of local Jews was totally erased from their villages during the "Holocaust" with the overly enthusiastic participation of many "fellow Ukrainians". Who out of fear in late 1943-1944 together with the Nazi's  brought Sonderkommandos; work units made up of Jewish death camp prisoners to exhume the bodies of the victims of the executions.

“We used to uncover the graves where there were people who had been killed during the past three years, take out the bodies, pile them up in tiers and burn these bodies, grind the bones, take out the valuables in the ashes, such as gold teeth, rings and so on, and separate them. After grinding the bones, we would throw the ashes up in the air so that they would disappear, replace the earth over the graves, and plant seeds so that nobody could recognize that there was once a grave there."

What IS different, THIS TIME. is that these Jews fleeing the hell of war are seeing the flag with the two blue stripes and the star of David flying on the borders symbolizing a place to flee to OUR homeland and freedom!! They see our representatives sent to shepherd them to life in OUR INDIGENOUS HOMELAND!!

Our enemies, the those ever so sad descendants of the self-inflicted tragedy of their ignomius defeat in 1948 whom I call the "Tragedy Tourists of Nachbaland™" and their overly enthusiastic minion of anti-Semite followers are once more frustrated and full of sick vile vulgar hatred once more!

Only this time they cannot refuse our people, who in dire need to flee death DO have the doors open to our homeland.

The long history of the Jews and the Ukraine

Many of the descendants of Jews in Europe are according to DNA studies descendants of the more than 100,000+ Jewish male and some female slaves sent to work the marble mines of Northern Italy with Vespasian's defeat of the "First" Jewish Revolt in 73CE.

Eastern Ukraine was home to the Khazar empire, a kingdom of Turkic people that arose in southeastern Russia in the 6th Century CE and extended as far west as Kiev, the capital of present-day Ukraine.

It is said that in the 8th Century, that the area was ruled by a semi-divine king called a Khagan, and local chieftains called “Begs”. Legend says that the Khazar king at that time invited representatives from the three monotheistic faiths to his palace and listened to each of them discuss their religion. It is said that the Khazar king was so struck with Judaism’s beauty and lucidity that he converted to Judaism and ordered that his followers do so as well. According to this story many Khazars became Jewish, embracing Jewish holidays and Shabbat and keeping kosher.

In the Middle Ages, the great Spanish Jewish sage Judah Halevi (1075-1141) wrote The Kuzari, a beautiful philosophical book that imagined the discussion between the king of the Khazars and the visiting rabbi. The Kuzari is accepted as a robust defense of Judaism against critics from other religions and from indifference.

In the early Middle Ages, the largely Jewish kingdom of the Khazars was buffeted by invading Russian forces, which ransacked its capital city in about the year 965 CE. The end of the Khazar kingdom came in the 1200s, when Mongol tribes invaded much of present-day Ukraine and Poland, causing huge devastation and loss of life.

In order to build back its power and wealth, Poland invited new residents to move into its territories from the west, primarily from Germanic lands. The Middle Ages were indeed a tumultuous time in Ukraine. Accounts describe the city of Kiev as being home to a substantial Jewish community in the 11th and 12th centuries. There were two heavily Jewish suburbs of the city, and one entryway into Kiev’s city walls that was known as the “Jewish Gate”. There are also references to a Jewish scholar at the time known as Moshe ben Yaakov of Kiev.

In 1264 Bolesław V the Chaste of what we call Poland today had invited Jews to settle and granted certain privileges to Jews. For example, he prohibited the kidnapping of Jewish children under penalty of death for the purpose of enforced Christian baptism, and he inflicted heavy punishment for the desecration of Jewish cemeteries. Casimir III the Great confirmed these privileges granted the Jews and allowed the exiled Spanish Jews to settle in Poland in great numbers and protected them as people of the king

Poland’s invitation for immigrants to come attracted Jews who were fleeing massacres in central Europe in the wake of the Crusades and the Black Death. Jews settled throughout Poland, including in territories that form present-day Ukraine, most notably the region of Volhynia, which lies at the intersection of Poland, Belarus and Ukraine. By the 1400s, up to 30,000 Jews were thought to be living in 60 different communities across Ukraine, including in the present-day capital city, Kiev.

Hasidim and the Ukraine

The founder of Hasidic Judaism, the Baal Shem Tov (1700-1760) didn’t live in Ukraine; his home was a couple of miles outside the Ukrainian border, in Poland. But the friend and disciple who spread the ideas of Hasidic Judaism and developed it into a distinct religious movement did so within Ukraine, from his base in the city of Mezeritch.

Rabbi Dov Ber, also known as the Maggid (preacher) of Mezeritch (1704-1772), first consulted with the Baal Shem Tov when he was ill. The Baal Shem Tov was known as a healer, as well as a religious sage. Rabbi Dov Ber was so impressed that he adopted the Baal Shem Tov’s worldview, which emphasized worshiping God with joy. Within a generation, Ukraine was home to some of the most important and influential Hasidic masters, including Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev and Menachem Nachum (and his son Modechai Twersky) of Chernobil. Ukrainian Jewish communities embraced Hasidic Judaism, with its emphasis on rigorously religious practice combined with spirituality and an emphasis on infusing religious observance with joy.

Perhaps the greatest Hasidic rabbi in Ukraine was Rabbi Nahman, from the Ukrainian town of Breslov (1772-1811), a great grandson of the Baal Shem Tov and a direct descendent of the Maharal, one of Europe’s greatest rabbis who lived in 16th century Prague. Rabbi Nahman built a large community in the Ukrainian town of Zlapotol in the early 1800s. He taught that Jews should strive to feel close to God at all times, and that feeling happy is best way to appreciate all of God’s many blessings.

The Ukrainian town of Uman, about 125 miles south of Kiev, is where Rabbi Nachman of Breslov lived during his final years and is buried. Uman has emerged as a major pilgrimage site for thousands of Jews each year. The most popular time to go is Rosh Hashanah, when tens of thousands of Jews visit Uman to celebrate the holiday together in the place where Rabbi Nahman taught.

The Cossacks and the Chmielnicki Massacres

A series of Cossack raids began in 1648, aimed at freeing Cossack communities from the domination of Polish landlords. The leader of these attacks was Bohdan Chmielnicki, who agitated for an independent Ukrainian country. Reflecting Cossack culture, Chmielnicki blamed Jews for his countrymen’s problems and encouraged his followers to massacre Jews.

Between 1648 and 1651, Chmielnicki’s followers killed about 20,000 Jews with unimaginable barbarity. Approximately half of all Jews living in Ukraine fled. So great was the Cossacks’’ depravity that some terrified Jews even fled into Crimea, where they faced slavery in the hands of Muslim Tatars.

The official records of the Jewish community in Kiev recorded the beginning of the massacres:

"Immediately after the death of the pious King Wladyslaw (1648) tens of thousands of villains, among them Cossacks…went forth and committed manu murders in the holy communities of Niemirow, Tulczyn, Machnowka, and other hold communities who congregated in order to save their lives from the…sword… Since the destruction of the Temple no other cruel murder like this one was committed for the sanctification of the name” of God."

Another eyewitness account described:

“they massacred about 6,000 souls in the town…and they drowned several hundreds in the water and by all kinds of cruel torments. In the synagogue, before the Holy Ark, they slaughtered with butchers’ knives…after which they destroyed the synagogue and took out all the Torah books…they tore them up…and they laid them out…for men and animals to trample on…they also made sandals of them…and several other garments.” The Cossacks knew no bounds in their sadism and cruelty and attacked and killed Jews – as well as some Polish nobles – with horrific barbarity."

Chmielnicki appealed for military aid from Russia and in 1654 much of Cossack-controlled Ukraine became a client state of Russia. Sporadic pogroms continued through the years, most notably in the city of Uman in 1768.

Ukrainians blamed Jews for their landlords’ greed.

Jewish life in present-day Ukraine became even more entrenched after 1569, when much of present-day Ukraine came under a new political alliance, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

Ukraine was an uneasy mix of many different ethnic groups. Much of the farmland and industry in Ukraine was the property of Polish nobles who were Catholic. The peasants in Ukraine were a mix of Eastern Orthodox Ukrainians and groups known as Cossacks, who lived primarily in the southern part of Ukraine. In the far south, the Crimean Peninsula was owned by the Ottoman Empire and populated largely by Tatar Muslims, who engaged in constant, low level warfare with Cossacks along their border. Both groups would stage skirmishes into each other’s territories, seizing property and slaves.

With many farms and businesses owned by absentee Polish landlords and nobles, an exploitative system called "Arenda" developed, which allowed agents to manage farms and other enterprises on behalf of absent landlords. It was often Jews who were employed to manage the "Arenda economy", acting as caretakers for absentee nobles and landowners. Jews managed salt mines, farms, mills, and inns. They also became local tax collectors for Polish noblemen. Many "Arendas" were given out in the alcohol trade: brewing, selling alcohol and managing inns and taverns were often seen as Jewish professions.

Working for hated landlords put Jews in an impossible position: they needed the "Arenda" system in order to survive economically, but the local peasants blamed Jews for their employers’ increasingly abusive practices. When Polish nobles increased taxes on their already suffering tenants, it was their Jewish agents who bore the blame. In time, extreme antisemitism became engrained in much of Ukrainian culture.

The term “pogrom” was invented after riots in Ukraine.

In 1881, Czar Alexander II was murdered by a left-wing terrorist. Soon, it was being (incorrectly) reported across Russia that the new Czar Alexander III had ordered Russian subjects to kill Jews. Pogroms broke out, with the greatest number taking place in Ukraine. These weren’t the first massacres of Jews in Ukraine and elsewhere in the Pale of Settlement, but the frequency and intensity of the mob attacks resulted in the phenomenon being given a new name: pogrom, which means violence in Russian.

In April 1903 an Easter pogrom took place in Moldova’s capital, Kishinev.  Forty-nine Jews were murdered, hundreds brutally injured.

Pogroms continued throughout the end of the 19th century. Some of the most horrible pogroms took place in 1905, after Czar Nicholas II issued the October Manifesto, guaranteeing all Russian subjects some basic political rights. The manifesto came at a perilous time in Russian politics, with political rivals ready to attack each other. As violence broke out, mobs turned on the Jews in their midst. Some of the worst anti-Jewish attacks were in the Ukrainian city of Odessa: The Jewish newspaper Voskhod reported that over 800 Jews were murdered in pogroms in Odessa in the days following the October Manifesto, and several thousands more were wounded.

Among the many towns engulfed in pogroms in 1905 was Kiev, Ukraine’s capital. There, the rampaging crowds attacked Jews for three days and nights. One of the terrified Jews during that ordeal was the well-known Yiddish writer known as Sholem Aleichem (his real name was Solomon Naumovich Rabinovich). For three days, he and his family hid in a hotel, listening to the terrible screams from their fellow Jews as they were attacked, maimed and killed outside.

Sholem Aleichem’s daughter later described the moment they realized their lives were in danger: “We ran from our beds to the windows on the street and looked down on the scene of brutality and murder – a gang of hoodlums beating a poor young Jew with heavy sticks; blood was running over the face of the young man, who was vainly shrieking for aid. A policeman stood nearby, casually looking on and not moving a finger.”

After the Kiev pogrom, Sholem Aleichem’s entire family fled Ukraine, eventually settling in New York.

The Russian Revolution in 1917, the Polish Ukrainian War of 1918-1919, the Ukrainian War of Independence, and the Soviet-Polish War of 1919-1921 sparked waves of hundreds of pogroms across the region which killed approximately 100,000 Jews. (Ukraine was briefly independent, before being divided by Poland and Russia.)

The violence was unspeakably intense. In the Ukrainian town of Proskurov, for instance, a three-day pogrom that broke out on February 15, 1919 killed 1,500 Jews. The town of Pogrebinschi experienced two pogroms: in May, 1919 Soviet troops went on a murderous rampage, killing 400 Jews. Three months later, Ukrainian nationalists staged a second pogrom and murdered a further 350 Jews there. Over 1,300 towns became scenes of horrific violence towards Jews.

 

 

 

Telling The Truth about the News

“There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn't true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.”― Soren Kierkegaard 

As a teacher of History I do make long detailed entries because I want the truth and the whole truth to be told all based on carefully detailed research of factual and reliable sources. 

As I pointed out in one of my latest Blog entries, I abhor lies and the "art of dezinformatsiya", which is regretfully used way too often by unscrupulous "News Sources (Mass Media) and Social Media" today to pervert the truth. 

In the 1950's during the "Cold War" the Soviet Union initiated a super-secret program to undermine the Western Democracies through the use of the cherished democratic "Freedom of the press" by the cynical "art of dezinformatsiya", a format that was created by Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria, who was chief of the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD). 

According to Vasily Mitrokhin, who was a former senior officer of the Soviet Foreign Intelligence service, and later demoted to KGB archivist.  It was Joseph Stalin who coined the term in Russian in a closed meeting with Beria. However, it was Beira who choose to use a French-sounding name to claim it had a Western origin. 

It is this “art” of dezinformatsiya that uses information inadmissible in proper historical discourse, by presenting known forged documents as genuine; inventing ingenious but implausible reasons for distrusting genuine documents; attributing conclusions to books and sources that report the opposite; manipulating statistical series to support the given point of view; and deliberately mis-translating texts (in languages other than the revisionist's) all have been fabricated around a kernel of truth, but unattributable to those who publish them to push lies and political agendas.

In recent times we have all witnessed the outcome of the success of this "dezinformatsiya" program in all the massive media campaign to discredit President Donald J Trump, as I pointed out in this Meme that I made to counter the utter lies. 

We have seen this also all over the world wide web and social media of how people ignorant of science are openly spreading lies and conspiracy theories based on fraudulent or "cooked"  information regarding vaccinations and the Corona Virus.

We have seen countless times how American TV celebrities' and newscasters have relayed incorrect and bogus lies many times to appease their viewing audience and all of which only to keep their ratings high so the networks will be pleased. 

The exact same is true of journalism today. The audience and paying customers today wish to watch rather than read has lead to the widespread demise of  the market for printed "newspapers" and magazines. This has led the editors and management of printed journalism to accept the change and adopt the World Wide Web and create web sites. 

Once management of the printed newspapers could guage their profit and attractability to advertisers by the amount of newspapers or magazines sold. 

For all news sources today it is a totally different form of assessment based on "visits" hits to their websites which are the major source for enticement to advertisers as well as paying customers who are drawn to the websites by articles designed to attract customers. 

There are editors of many once respected News sources who have cynically turned to the use of "click bait" on Talkbacks to lure in readers and to gain responses (clicks) and have turned their backs on the once taunted "Ethical journalism" like the New York Times whose byline was once "All the news fit to print".

The Editorial management of "News sites", as we have witnessed today, could care less about monitoring the vile comments made n response to their articles -because for them the more comments that are made the greater the "hits" their web page receive and this increases web page interaction and therefore increases the value of their web site to advertisers. 

Many times the articles posted are from unscrupulous or nefariously biased sources paid local journalists and photo-journalist known as "stringers" whose "photo ops" or "news stories" that they relay to the actual journalists are many times tainted by the use of mendacious lies, blatantly false and fictitious historical revisionism and abject hatred to draw attention.

The image of the ethical Journalist, and especially foreign news correspondents, who once would do his or hers own detailed and thorough research to present the news in an honest, ethical, and unbiased way is regretfully a thing of the past.

Freedom of the press and freedom of speech should not extend to political subversion and the spreading of false accusations and conspiracy theories nor to spread terrorist propaganda. Those "news sources" that do spread lies and defame the freedom of the press and speech should be openly ostracized and boycotted.

It should be ascertained that the core purpose of a journalist is to present facts objectively to allow the readers to form their own conclusions as in being a true unbiased News Source.

I hate and abhor falsehood and its name is Palestine

Psalm 119: 163 "I hate and abhor falsehood;" 

One of THE most cherished slanders and perversions of the truth is the use of the term "Palestine" and how the "Arabs of the Mandated Areas" who have usurped the term "Palestinians" to describe themselves. 

"When in 1921 I came to Palestine – until the end of World War I it was a barren, sparsely inhabited Turkish province – we, the Jewish pioneers, were the avowed Palestinians. So we were named in the world. Arab nationalists, on the other hand, stridently rejected the designation. Arab spokesmen continued to insist that the land we had cherished for centuries was, like Lebanon, merely a fragment of Syria." From an op-ed by Golda Meir printed in The New York Times January 14, 1976

As to the real truth - This morning I wanted to wish the "laddies and lassies" of the Community Standards Gestapo headquarters in Dublin Ireland a very pleasant work day as you tirelessly strive to delete and ban Jews and pro-Israel Zionist posters from your platform!! 

Ah yes Ireland… that quaint country of such glorious DEEP hatred of the "Christ Killers" (the Catholic Church's theological position that holds that Jews as a people group will forever hold a collective responsibility for killing Jesus)  and those ever so deeply passionate anti-Zionists!!!

LOL, I love it that a JINO -aka Mark, the "what Me, Jewish?" evidently anti-Zionist -same T-shirt, EVERYDAY Zuckerberg, is evidently missing quite a few marbles in the being a real Jew compartment of the brain. I understand he purports to assume he is a "Jew". 

To me it is so regretful that during the past two decades how atypical that a secular "liberal conscientious Jew" would allow such virulent anti-Semitism "hatred of Jews" -meaning him and his family to flourish on a "social" platform that HE created, reveals the immense void of the removal of "religion" that is evident in modern secular liberal Judaism.  

And one just has to love the idea how the term "social media" is used to designate what is in essence, a platform for the widespread ANTI-social propaganda and hatred media. 

As a historian I cannot help be see the similarities of history repeating itself with these "Liberal " Jews today, who like the Jews in Germany during the rise of Hitler and the "Third Reich" were labeled "Mischlings." 

We have seen with organizations like the "Jewish Voice for Palestine" and "Code Pink, how these modern day "Mischlings"- who are now referred to as "JINOs" -"Jews In Name Only", are flagrantly anti-Zionist Jews who would do everything to show they are "faithful" to the "motherland" of  anti-Israel "Liberalism".

"Most Mischlings did not identify with the Jewish community. Many had grown up as baptized Christians and even were themselves very anti-Semitic. They preferred to think of themselves as normal, as part of the whole of German fabric, as part of the "Volk". Their language, their culture, the societal relationships and schooling all had been German. Even for those who grew up knowing that they had had a parent who was Jewish, they preferred not be left behind and identified as Jewish. They yearned, worked and did everything within their capabilities to prove themselves as good, loyal members of the Germanic peoples. They needed to show the German world that their German blood was the dominant force that flowed in their veins."Hitler's Jewish Soldiers By Jerry Klinger "The Ideal German Soldier"

For those who aspire to be "anti-Zionistic" JINOs you should heed the wise words of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks z"l regarding the words of Moses and the meaning of why we Jews must remember and teach our children the story of Passover:

"Forget where you came from and why, and you will eventually lose your identity, your continuity and your raison d’etre. You will come to think of yourself as the mere member of a nation among nations, one ethnicity among many. Forget the story of freedom and you will eventually lose freedom itself."

Now getting back to my rant regarding the "Foreign Student" controllers of the "algorithm of entrapment" .... "What's on my mind?" 

 Ah but do you truly wish to know the truth, me thinks not? To inquire "What's on my mind?" to elicit a response is just SO Freudian!! 

To paraphrase Shakespeare; “Something is rotten in the Community Standards headquarters in Dublin Ireland”! and it ain't Irish! 

Could it be that there is a preference -advertised for the service center- that you are looking to "employ students from foreign" countries and that there is an overabundance of "Arabic" names and of course Pakistanis employed? 

And as ALL Hasbarnics (those who speak the truth and facts for Israel) know. Ireland IS THE HOME of the worst anti-Israel pro-Tragedy Tourist of Nachbaland™ "click bait" talkback trolls! 

Over the years I have seen them in their lavish support for the ISM -International Solidarity Movement in Gaza and BDS "Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions" movement and their stated and explicit hatred for Israel, which is so massive they out do themselves as the most venomous ant-Semites I have ever read comments by or seen tweets by! 

Oh yes, regretfully we of the massively superior Zionist Hasbara intellect KNOW WHO you "Liars for Palestine™" really are!!

For we see them on EVERY Facebook /Meta "News" media page excreting their venomous hatred and totally mendacious lies of revisionist history and gross falestinian dezinformatsiya!! 

We know just how you "gang up" on those of the Zionist Hasbara to complain to have us banned so that we cannot counter your lies and fabrications. We see on your Facebook pages how some of them even listed their place of employment with the Dublin Headquarters of the Customer Service Center! 

How many of the Irish "Click bait" Talkback artists of venomously anti-Semitism have used this lie- so much I made this Meme to debunk them!!

These Liars for Palestine™"  have even attempted to usurp the term used to describe hatred of Jews to further their lie of an ethnicity of a non existent people!!

Just as in the total fabrication and mind boggling bamboozlement of the world with your invention of a "country or nation"(nationality) that supposedly once existed. 

A people whom usurped the name given by a Roman Emperor, who in his ignominious defeat by Jews, had meant to erase the memory of OUR INDIGENOUS homeland of Judaea by naming it after a people the "Philistines".

These Philistines who were called the "Pleshtim" or invaders from the Greek islands as described by the Greek historian Herodotus -whom you fabricate lies about as "proof", when you cannot even take the time to verify the actual Greek translation of the term "palaistes". 

You quote "The Histories" of Herodotus's Book VII as "proof"? 

"Thence they went on to invade Egypt; and when they were in Syria which is called Palestine, Psammetichos king of Egypt met them..." 

The problem is the term "Palestine" is NOT translated correctly. 

Herodotus the Greek who wrote in Greek around 450 BCE wrote in Book VII of his "The Histories", that the "sea People" were in essence Minoan's from the Mediterranean Sea who invaded the coastal lands from Egypt to Lebanon were descendants of Greek peoples -ergo his use of the Greek term "palaistes" from the term for "wrestlers" to identify them. 

These "Sea People" fled the eruption between 1642 and 1540 BCE of the volcano of Santorini -though dormant, is still an active volcano.

In its explosive eruption it created a group of small islands around its crater. The island of Santatori was called Thera in ancient times is an island in the southern Aegean Sea 

 "[The Phoenicians and the Syrians of Palestina], according to their own account, dwelt anciently upon the Erythraean Sea, but crossing thence, fixed themselves on the seacoast of Syria, where they still inhabit. This part of Syria, and all the region extending from hence to Egypt, is known by the name of "Palaestina"." 

You can review a scene from the north wall of Medinet Habu that illustrated the Egyptian campaign against the Sea Peoples in what has come to be known as the Battle of the Delta. 

It is true that the accompanying hieroglyphs do not name Egypt's enemies, rather they describe them simply as being from "northern countries". 

Fifteenth-century BC paintings in Thebes, Egypt depict Minoan-appearing individuals bearing gifts. Inscriptions describing them as coming from keftiu ("islands in the middle of the sea") may refer to gift-bringing merchants or officials from Crete. 

Early scholars noted the similarities between the hairstyles and accessories worn by the combatants and other reliefs in which such groups from the Grecian Isles are named. 

It never fails to astonish me how the "Liars for Palestine™" insist on posting this "Big Lie" of historical revisionism regarding the "actuality of a Palestinian People" and as "proof" of the existence of a "Sovereign country by the name Palestine" when there is ABSOLUTELY NO documented or archaeological proof that this claim is true!! 

These "Liars for Palestine™" insist on posting "ancient" maps where the term itself was created and spread on maps purposely by early cartographers to designate the "Holy Land". 

Very few remind readers that the early church was in competition with Judaism as seen by the repeated attempts to eliminate the Jews- (does the Spanish Inquisition ring a bell?)

And as in ALL conflicts there are those "victors" who purposely set out to erase the memory of a vanquished foe....

And pray tell when you "Liars for Palestine™" quote the "ancient" maps that labeled the area as "Palestina" as in the Roman province of Syria-Palestina ,do you not note that many times they either designate the Old Testament division of Eretz-Yisrael by tribal areas or as Iudea and Israel (Shomron)? 

That "ancient maps" by NON Christian cartographers do NOT mention Palestine but the lands of Syria-Palestina? 

In conclusion, of my long rant, allow me to state that by far the most vicious and hate filled pathological liars on the internet that I have encountered are those people that admire, the so-called nation that never existed “Falestine”. 

What liars fear the most is being revealed as liars and that is why they detest Israel so violently since we dare to tell them and their "audience" the truth. 

This whole "Big Lie" of historical revisionism by the "Palestinians" and their venomous defaming of Israel, that is allowed to freely spread openly by highly obvious and clear complicity by the social media while censoring the truth by pro-Jewish and Zionistic individuals. IS THE reason, why we Israeli's face such ignorance and hatred. 

It is fitting that the whole issue of anti-Israel social media hatred is in this infamous quote by the chief propagandist for the Nazi Party Joseph Goebbels: 

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.” 

Epilogue: 

Do not say you were not informed because I have told you the whole truth. 

It is up to you to inform your friends so that the light of truth will spread. 

Psalm 116:118 "Thou hast made light of all them that err from Thy statutes; for their deceit is vain." 

Psalm 116:160 "The beginning of Thy word is truth; and all Thy righteous ordinance endureth forever." 

The fallacy of the BLM accusation of Jewish "White Privilege"

When I was growing up in the pre-Civil Right era in the "Heart of Dixie" Birmingham Alabama. My grandfather Ernest (Elisha ben Natanel HaLevi) had owned several small stores in the millinery business (primarily Hats and gloves) throughout the "Greater Birmingham Area" in the pre-Jacqueline Kennedy period when it was "fashionable for women to wear hats and gloves. He also had "Hat" departments in the large Department Stores owned by my "Mishpucah" relatives in the area.

Many times, they came to the Department Store owned by my relatives -which had "Hat" departments and would purchase clothing for their children. When I was just 14 my grandfather took me to work with him. I would run items to the stores and collect the daily sales receipts from the stores in downtown Birmingham Alabama. When I went out on my runs, I would stop at my other maternal Grandfather Ben Levy's "Levy Brother's Drugstore" where my grandfather was the pharmacist.

In the past it was quite common, as it regretfully is today, that many "Afro American" women worked to support their families, as single mothers. Many worked as maids in the homes of middle and upper class wealthy white families from before dawn to late at night for meager pay. These women were dependent on local city-wide public transportation "bus service" on the "segregated buses to reach their "jobs" in the suburbs.

Many of these women had been studious in school and had achieved education. Many found that the doors to better paying jobs were few in number and the job market was severely limited due to outright racism and jealousy by lower class whites who were not willing to allow a Black man and especially a Black woman to be superior to them.

 Since these Afro-American women were very "devout Christians" they were the main customers of my grandfather's and relatives' businesses. In the days before "credit cards" these women would purchase Hats and gloves months in advance on a "Lay-away" plan for Easter. Many of these hard-working women would go to the Department Stores owned by my relatives and purchase clothing items also in "easy payment plans" that were highly flexible -many times based on the very close and personal relations that developed between Jewish families and Afro-American families.

Therefore, when Easter approached and my Grandfather's Jewish accountant Sarah Lischkoff saw that some of these women were in arrears, my grandfather would ask Sarah to have the women who managed the hat departments or stores to notify them that they could have their items that they had placed in "Lay-a-way" to wear for Easter.

My grandfather never "demanded" payment of them since he knew many of these women and their families. Sometimes he would leave an envelope in their box with money knowing their hardships they faced. I remember my "Uncle Leon Aland" and his brothers would do the same.

In the drugstore of my other maternal grandfather Ben Levy there was a "coloured only section" in the rear of the store. I remember many times when my grandfather or his younger brother Morris z"l would see that a customer was hesitant to ask for a needed medication that they would give it to them. Sometimes so as to not go against the pride of the person who could not pay, he would place the ordained medicine in place of the cheaper item that the customer took so as to not offend their pride.

I can also remember how he gave out treats and candies to the children. Occasionally when he saw that a child was hungry, he would go to the food counter of the store and ask the worker to prepare something for the child.

 As Jews in the deep South, we were considerate and highly aware of the conditions of the Blacks and sympathized deeply with their plight because many of the same limitations and manners of discrimination that over the years had once been carried out openly became "discreet".

All of our grandparents were aware of the story of Leo Frank and the underlying ancient hatred of the Jews that led to his murder and especially that hatred motivated by the Jewish connection to the Red Scare of 1919–1921 that had fueled xenophobic fears of foreign radicals migrating to undermine American values and provoke an uprising like the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution in Russia.

Many "White Americans" primarily those from the "superior European lands" suffered from generations of open anti-Jewishness and anti-Semitism. I personally found that the highest level of Jew hatred came from the Catholics of Irish descent and their hatred was applied against us Jews and the Afro-Americans.

I have always found that hatred was taught. That when those of "superior European lands" and the Catholics of Irish descent came into direct personal contact with us Jews and learned that we were not "monsters" and "children of Satan" their views and relationship changed.

There are many detractors among the Afro-Americans of America today -especially those brainwashed members of Black Lives Matter, that claim that Jews were NOT as badly treated as Afro-Americans because we are "White" and appear to be the priviledged "Caucasians".

These instigators of hatred say that we Jews have "White Privilege" because after generations of living in Europe many Jews are indeed fair skinned, which is obvious to the eye and therefore we could "assimilate" and acquire "Privilege". These hate-filled "Historical Revisionists" and rabid anti-Semites have embraced the writings of Arthur Koestler from his 1967 book "The Thirteenth Tribe: The Khazarian Empire and its Heritage" as "proof" of the anti-Semitic conspiracy theories around the Khazars’ reported conversion to Judaism. This spurred anti-Semitic beliefs that they were building a secret empire which sought widespread control through financial gains.

They point out that the Khazars moved into and settled in Eastern Europe, and antisemites push the conspiracy theory that Ashkenazi Jews from Eastern Europe—are not “real Jews” - a phrase claiming that today’s Jews are not the chosen people referenced in the Bible and are working to infiltrate other nations on their quest for world domination.

The Khazarian trope is being widely spread by the minions of the "falestinian Nachba Tragedy Tourists" and their brainwashed and bamboozled sycophants to undermine the Jewish connection to Israel, and therefore Israel’s right to exist, because it falsely says Jews originated from the northern Caucasus region and were part of the Turkic empire—and not the Land of Israel.

Some antisemites on both the right and left now openly claim that Ashkenazi Jews are “fake Jews,” and that Israel is a “fake nation.” This accusation has been used historically and continues to be used by those who believe in the "Khazarian conspiracy theory" dispelling the Jewish connection to Israel

Few of these same brainwashed detractors today are oblivious to their "bamboozlement" that this part of "Aryan racism" was a major part of the Nazi regime. And they are uneducated in the historical truth of how the Nazi doctors and scientists made portfolios of the "Hated Jews" to "Prove" that Jews were not a religious denomination, but a dangerous "non-European race.”

The Nazi's believed the Jews were not a religious denomination, but a dangerous "non-European race" and their racial antisemitism was based on false scientific theories.

This aspect of racism was always an integral part of Nazism and it is has become an integral part of the "Historic Revisionist" put forward by the Arabs of the Mandated Areas aka the "Palestinians" in their efforts to usurp the connection of the Jewish people to our indigenous homeland of Eretz Yisrael.

This "Historical Revisionism" now has Black supremacists claiming Black people—not Jews—are the true chosen people of God and that Black supremacy has roots in “Black Chosenness”— the belief that African Americans are the descendants of the twelve Hebrew tribes of Israel who settled across Africa after the destruction of the Kingdom of Israel and were eventually sold into slavery during the Atlantic slave trade.

 Black supremacy argues that Black people are superior to all other races and that “white” Jews are imposters. Elements of Black supremacy can be found within the Black Hebrew Israelite movement, as well as within Nation of Islam under the leadership of Louis Farrakhan and his supporters. In the age of social media, some Black supremacists have co-opted the language of white supremacists when discussing Jews: calling them “termites” and “bugs” with subhuman features

The "White Priviledged" accusation regarding Jews received notoriety in the aftermath of the riots in Fergusson Missouri when the "Palestinians" and their communist left wing anti-Zionist backers "hijacked" the momentum to finally undermined the once very close relationship between Jews and Afro-Americans.

As a Jew in the Deep South, I grew up learning that we Jews -from our experiences in Eastern Europe lived always with the realization that anti-Jewish sentiments lurked in the "darkness".

That the little help we gave in kindness to the poor -yes even the poor whites, was overlooked when it came to the "Mark of Cain" that still exists and lurks openly and increasingly on the Internet through various World Wide Web formats even today in the teachings that; "Jews murdered the Christ". 

Hatred never dies, it only mutates and thrives in the hearts of those who are unwilling and cannot accept that there are those who are different from them.  

Patriotism and the need for sanity in America

I had posted a previous blog entry the other day regarding the Facebook query, What is on my mind? And like yesterday I was concerned about an item lost among many young Americans. So the post was entitled; "Patriotism and SANITY. More importantly EDUCATION!!!"  I had asked those on Facebook who read it to share my "Thoughts" 

What has been bothering me for the past few days, and has caused me to lie in bed unable to sleep, is the image of Gwen Berry the "Black American". 

When receiving the high honor of a medal for athletic achievement in the name of "OUR" country, Gwen Berry choose to show the resentment and hatred that she has been taught by those who adhere to a hatred of an old norm in American society by standing with a clenched upraised fist her head bowed and turned away in disrespect.

As I looked at the image, I was reminded of a ship captain from Massachusetts named William Driver who coined the nickname “Old Glory”.

When writing about his thoughts to recollect the reason he referred to the American flag “Old Glory,” Driver proclaimed; 

“It has ever been my staunch companion and protection. Savages and heathens, lowly and oppressed, hailed and welcomed it at the far end of the wide world. Then, why should it not be called Old Glory?”  

I think ALL Americans can readily agree with our fellow "Black American" citizens that the issue of racism and "white supremacy" and the values spread by those who are so blinded by hatred need to be dealt with severely. With that said, those "educators" who teach "racial toleration" and "diversity"should also keep in mind the words of unity and freedom.

As a historian who actually READ the poem "Defense of Fort M'Henry" I can most readily agree that the wording of the third stanza of the poem, which later formed the basis for the lyrics of the “The Star-Spangled Banner” -those three stanzas were NOT used. It is apparent that the stanza WOULD be repugnant and offensive to Black Americans like Gwen Berry. So YES, these offensive stanzas SHOULD BE stricken from the entire congressional resolution from March 3, 1931 (46 Stat. 1508, codified at 36 U.S.C. § 301)!

For those who do not know the wording of the third stanza, it DOES speak in a very derogatory manner about Black slaves who fled to join the British army and navy to gain their freedom and to fight against the American forces. 

As Gwen Berry stated:

"If you know your history, you know the full song of the national anthem, the third paragraph speaks to slaves in America, our blood being slain...all over the floor. It's disrespectful and it does not speak for Black Americans. It's obvious. There's no question."

But Gwen dear if you knew your history as YOU and ALL your "Black American activists" claim, it does NOT "allude to the catching and beating slaves!"

This is why in education reading comprehension and the meaning of words and HISTORICAL CONTEXT  is IMPORTANT!

Key was referring to ex slaves who joined the British forces to fight against America.

Yes, Gwen, Francis Scott Key WAS a slaveholder! 

Which regrettably was an abhorrent "norm" in the pre-Civil War American society, but nary a mention is given to those thousands of Americans who died in a bloody Civil War fighting to emancipate Black Americans.

In his famous line, from his poem “Dulce et Decorum Est” written by a British soldier and poet Wilfred Owen during the First World War in 1919, and published posthumously in 1920.

“Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori – It is sweet and glorious to die for your country” is a line from the Roman lyrical poet Horace's Odes (III.2.13) 

This phrase inspired numerous nineteenth- and twentieth-century nationalist patriots in various countries. 

The phrase can be rendered in English as; "It is sweet and honourable to die for one's country," or "It is sweet and fitting to die for the fatherland” and the words can be heard echoed in Joseph Trumpeldor’s last words at Tel Chai:

‘Ein davar, tov lamut be'ad arẓenu’ (‘Never mind; it is good to die for our country’).”

Owen's line speaks of the old Latin phrase of honor in dying for one's country, as so many of our country men have. 

Just as in the famous last words attributed to Nathan Hale; “I only regret that I have but one life to give for my country.”

And these haters must realise that our Flag and our nation symbolise the lines that Emma Lazarus immortalized in her poem "The New Colossus":

"Keep ancient lands your storied pomp!" cries she

with silent lips "Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door."

 

All night long I could see the images of these hate filled ignorant "Americans", both Black and white NOT standing with tears in their eyes, filled with the emotion that the AMERICAN FLAG symbolizes. 

For me, in my mind's eye, I could only see the rows and rows of American patriots; young and old men and women of ALL colors and races who had either been born in the "Free land of America" or in foreign lands who had laid down their lives for the "Freedom of Speech", these arrogant, egotistical, sniveling brat narcissists so readily abuse by kneeling or standing in protest not realizing that they have allowed those who teach hatred to erroneously educate them.

To them I say clearly and loudly: Honor the Flag, honor the words of the anthem and not the poem!! 

When you stand with a clenched fist and turn aside your head aside.

And you cannot accept the fact that the words are important and symbolize greatness, then YOU are blinded by hate! 

When you close YOUR ears to the words that speak of honor to our nation

And YOU cannot accept the fact that the words of the National Anthem express the exhilaration and ecstasy of the sight of OUR Nations flag still standing, in light of the adversity of a severe bombardment, then YOU are blinded by hate! 

When you cannot see the blood of those Black Americans who fought despite the adversary of the "Old" norms to keep OUR nation free YOU are blinded by hate! 

And YOU cannot accept the fact that free men of ALL colors have built this nation and have thrown off the "Old World" mentalities that were once the norm, then YOU are blinded by hate! 

When you are so blinded by ignorance and hatred of it's symbolism held in love and cherished by those who died, YOU are blinded by hate!  

And you cannot accept the fact that the beauty expressed in its color and make up of stars and "bright bars" that represent its unity and its resilience to the tyranny of our oppressors is "racist", then YOU are blinded by hate! 

If you cannot accept the fact that men and women of ALL colors, races and religions have died with its image in their hearts, then YOU are blinded by hate! 

If you cannot honor OUR "Old Glory" and OUR Anthem then OUR home is NOT yours!    

O! say can you see, by the dawn's early light,

    What so proudly we hail'd at the twilight's last gleaming,

Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,

    O'er the ramparts we watch'd, were so gallantly streaming?

        And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,

        Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there —

            O! say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave

            O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave?

I say God Bless America! The land that symbolizes freedom!

Gwen Berry and the Star Spangled Banner

The U.S. Olympic hammer thrower, Gwen Berry, who while being "honored", turned away from the flag as the national anthem blared and covered her face with a shirt that read "Activist Athlete."

In her "defense" Berry later clarified that as a "Black American" she has an issue with a line in "The Star-Spangled Banner," which she said "alludes to the catching and beating slaves."

Berry said:

"If you know your history, you know the full song of the national anthem, the third paragraph speaks to slaves in America, our blood being slain...all over the floor. It's disrespectful and it does not speak for Black Americans. It's obvious. There's no question."

Gwen, you should have listened more closely in your history class because the National anthem DOES NOT "allude to the catching and beating slaves."  

The poem; "Defense of Fort M'Henry" which later formed the basis for the lyrics of the “The Star-Spangled Banner”, speaks about Black slaves who fled to join the British army and navy to gain their freedom and to fight against the American forces. It does NOT "allude to the catching and beating slaves."

What DOES SCREAM to be noted is that the offensive third stanza of the poem is NOT PART of today's National Anthem!!

 The Background:

There is no single cause for the War of 1812 but several related causes

In Europe, Britain, the naval power, and France, the land power, were at war with each other. Each side was trying to cripple the other’s economy with blockades and confiscation of trade goods. And the United States was trying to remain neutral. Britain issued Orders-in-Council, treating as an enemy any vessel that tried to enter a French port without first stopping at a British port to pay a fee and get a license. The British felt this was necessary in order to defeat Napoleon, but the Americans felt Britain was insisting they should have no trade of their own and that she should control all their foreign commerce; they felt their independence was at stake.

The United States retaliated with the Embargo Act, which stopped all United States merchant vessels from sailing from United States ports and forbade commerce with any foreign nation.

The Embargo adversely affected all regions of the United States, resulting in a depression that all but paralyzed the economy of the United States. Smuggling along the Canadian border flourished.

 MARITIME ISSUES

Impressment was the most volatile issue between the United States and Britain. This was because it dealt with sovereignty. Impressment involved the right to search commercial ships for deserters. Poor food, hard work, and harsh discipline caused British sailors to desert by the thousands. Most of them ended up in America. Britain never claimed the right to search vessels of the United States Navy. She did claim the right to search private vessels as she felt this involved no invasion of another nation's sovereignty. Americans considered this to be an insult to their sovereignty.

 EXPANSIONISM

The division of land after the Revolution did not leave everyone satisfied. The loss of the Ohio River valley, housing vital fur trade routes, displeased Canadian and British merchants. It also served home to a large Indigenous population, a large part of which had supported the British during the American Revolution and now argued for an autonomous Indigenous state to be created south and west of Lake Erie.

The Americans felt that British support of the First Nations was a threat to their expansion and their policy of forcing the conversion of First Nations peoples to farmers, giving up their hunting lands for American use.

The primary cause for the call to invade Canada was the perceived support the British in Canada were giving the Natives of the Northwest. The Americans did not miss that Canada was Britain's last foothold on the continent either. As relations with Britain worsened, the call for expansion both north and south increased in volume and frequency. The exhaustion of the farm lands in the Old Northwest caused land-hungry farmers to call for the conquest of Canada with its good lands.

 POLITICAL

All these issues resulted in the surfacing of a small yet persuasive political faction known as the War Hawks, led by Henry Clay of Kentucky, who was elected to Congress in 1810. The War Hawks demanded war with Britain.

The Story 

Following the Battle of Baltimore on Sept. 14, 1814, against invading British forces — Francis Scott Key had been “dispatched by President James Madison on a mission … to negotiate for the release of Dr. William Beanes, a prominent surgeon”.

While onboard the British flagship Francis Scott Key witnessed the 25-hour bombardment of Fort McHenry (And the rocket’s red glare! /The bombs bursting in air!) by British ships of the Royal Navy in the Chesapeake Bay. Inspired by the sight of the Stars and Stripes still flying the next morning at Fort McHenry — Gave proof through the night/That our flag was still there/Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave.

Key penned the poem; "Defense of Fort M'Henry" which later formed the basis for the lyrics of the “The Star-Spangled Banner”. Although the poem has four stanzas, only the first stanza forms the National Anthem today. Here are all four stanzas of “The Star-Spangled Banner”

First Stanza:  the National Anthem today.

O! say can you see, by the dawn's early light,

 What so proudly we hail'd at the twilight's last gleaming,

Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,

O'er the ramparts we watch'd, were so gallantly streaming?

And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,

Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there —

O! say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave

O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave?

 Second Stanza:

On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,

Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,

What is that which the breeze o'er the towering steep,

As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?

Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,

In full glory reflected now shines on the stream —

'Tis the star-spangled banner, O! long may it wave

O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave.

Third Stanza:

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore

That the havock of war and the battle's confusion

A home and a country should leave us no more?

Their blood has wash'd out their foul foot-steps' pollution,

No refuge could save the hireling and slave,

From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave;

And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave

O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave.

 Fourth Stanza:

O! thus be it ever when freemen shall stand

Between their lov'd home, and the war's desolation,

Blest with vict'ry and peace, may the heav'n-rescued land.

Praise the power that hath made and preserv'd us a nation!

Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,

And this be our motto — "In God is our trust!"

And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave

O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave.

“The Star-Spangled Banner” was recognized for official use by the U.S. Navy in 1889, and by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson in 1916, and was made the national anthem by a congressional resolution on March 3, 1931 (46 Stat. 1508, codified at 36 U.S.C. § 301), which was signed by President Herbert Hoover.

 About the author

Francis Scott Key was born August 1, 1779 and died January 11, 1843. From the time of the creation of the southern colonies with their large agriculturally based lifestyle, slavery had become a "necessary evil". By the beginning of the nineteenth century most of the large "plantations" were wholly dependent on slave labor.

Key inherited not only his family's Plantation "Terra Rubra," in Frederick County, Maryland, upon the death of his father he also became a slave holder.

According to historical records, Key purchased his first slave in 1800 or 1801 and owned six slaves in 1820. He freed seven slaves in the 1830s, one of whom continued to work for him for wages as his farm's foreman, supervising several slaves.

Key also represented several slaves seeking their freedom, as well as several slave-owners seeking return of their runaway slaves. Key was one of the executors of John Randolph of Roanoke's will, which freed his 400 slaves, and Key fought to enforce the will for the next decade and to provide the freed slaves with land to support themselves.

Key is known to have publicly criticized slavery's cruelties, and a newspaper editorial stated that "he often volunteered to defend the downtrodden sons and daughters of Africa." The editor said that Key "convinced me that slavery was wrong—radically wrong".

There is a quote being falsely attributed to Key taken out of context from ambiguities in the 1937 biography of Key by Edward S. Delaplainem that is being used to defame Key as a "racist".

The truth is Key, who was a leader, fundraiser and was a founding member for the American Colonization Society organization, was in actuality describing the attitudes of Southern religious institutions in reply to an 1838 "questionnaire" that he wrote to Reverend Benjamin Tappan of Maine.

In his reply to Reverend Tappan, Key cities the attitude of Southern religious institutions that asserted that; "formerly enslaved blacks could not remain in the U.S. as paid laborers".

Key's personal thoughts, as a leader and fundraiser for the American Colonization Society organization, was not to send the men and women he freed to Africa upon their emancipation.

It was the attitude of the Southern religious institutions and most members of Southern Society who in many cases were wholly dependent on slave labor that free blacks are;

"a distinct and inferior race of people, which all experience proves to be the greatest evil that afflicts a community".

Prejudicial historians have argued that upper-class American society, of which Key was a part, could never "envision a multiracial society". These "historians" are writing from a viewpoint now blinded by the passage of time and of norms in society at that particular period, no matter how antiquated and despised they are now.

It is a HISTORICAL FACT that in the northern part of the newly founded United States -North of the "Mason Dixon Line", the majority of the populace was of "White Europeans". There had previously NOT been a number of "racially" different citizens since in the Northern US Colonies there was little need for field hands like on the large farming plantations of the South. Because of this there were very few if any "Black" slaves in most of the New England colonies.

By the beginnings of the 19th Century, the majority of free blacks born in the Northern colonies which became the United States.

The American Colonization Society of which Francis Scott Key was a leading member was not supported by most abolitionists or free blacks of the time since the members were predominantly slave owners. It was through the organization's work that eventually led to the creation of Liberia in 1847.

Abolitionists alleged that as District Attorney, Francis Scott Key suppressed abolitionists and did not support an immediate end to slavery. Yet these detractors failed to note that Key was also a leader of the American Colonization Society which endeavored to send freed slaves to lives of freedom in Africa. Key freed some of his slaves in the 1830s, paying one ex-slave as his farm foreman. He publicly criticized slavery and gave free legal representation to some slaves seeking freedom, but he also represented owners of runaway slaves.

By 1810, more than 15 percent of the U.S. population was enslaved. Some 6,000 African Americans fled to the British during the War of 1812, on the promise of freedom and were recruited into the Royal Navy or into the Colonial Marines, which was a mostly black unit. The Colonial Marines was part of the British forces that overran Washington, D.C., in 1814 and set fire to the White House.

From March of 1813 to September 1814, the British Navy occupied the Chesapeake Bay and its islands. On April 2, 1814, Admiral Alexander Cochrane proclaimed that any escaped slave who made it to British lines or a British vessel and was willing to enlist in the Royal Marines would be freed. Several thousand Maryland slaves risked capture from slave patrols to escape to the British. Seven hundred slaves enlisted in the British Marines and served with bravery at the Battles of Bladensburg and North Point.

The first three lines refer to the slaves who took advantage of the war to escape, but "their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution." There was "no refuge" for the "hireling and slave from the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave." 

For many when Key wrote these words, he was expressing his despisal for those former slaves, who had joined the British as part of their Colonial Marines, to be slaughtered and killed as they attempted to take Baltimore. Though Key never told anyone what he actually meant in this line it more than probably is correct.

What is shameful is that those 700 Black American men who escaped bondage and offered themselves to serve the British did so not only their own freedom, but the freedom of all who were enslaved in the "land of the free". These men were true heroes and should be honored. The pity is they had to fight for the British, not the Americans.

In light of today's values it is regretful that this highly controversial and problematic third stanza was included as part of the original full U.S. anthem. This fact tarnishes both the song and our nation. Yet, it SCREAMS to be noted that the controversial third stanza is omitted and NOT used in today's National Anthem.

In conclusion:

It should be noted that on Christmas Eve of 1814, the peace treaty was signed and sealed. The eleven articles stated that the U.S. and Britain would return to the status quo ante bellum, or the exact same state of affairs as before the war. There was no mention of impressment or the Orders-in-Council; the issues which had spurred the U.S. into declaring war. On paper, it was as if the war had never been fought.

What does stand out is that during the talks the United States requested the return of “such slaves as may be in your control, belonging to any inhabitant or citizen of the United States.” The British refused and by doing so tarnished both the song and our nation.