RUTHFULLY YOURS

Why has no one read it?

In a dark Yiddish masterpiece that predated the Holocaust by two decades, the poet Uri Zvi Greenberg envisioned the annihilation of Jewish life in Europe. Today, seven decades after that vision became cataclysmic reality, as Jews this week observe the annual commemoration of the Holocaust on Yom Hashoah, and as the Jewish horizon in Europe darkens once again, his work speaks with fresh immediacy.

Greenberg (1896-1981) was not only one of Yiddish literature’s foremost modernists but arguably the greatest Hebrew poet of the last hundred years. If his name is unfamiliar today, that is because he inhabits a strange kind of cultural quarantine. Literary critics in Israel acknowledge his titanic stature, yet in a country that pays high honor to its writers, he has never been part of Israel’s school curriculum, and you won’t find him among the quartet of 20th-century Hebrew poets whose faces were recently added to Israeli banknotes. Nor is much of his work—including In malkhes fun tseylem (“In the Crucifix Kingdom”), which I offer here for the first time in English translation—available in English.

Obama is the most dangerous president in history. He lied when promising the world that the U.S. would never allow Iran’s war fanatics to have nuclear weapons. While Obama was demagogically repeating, “Never! Never!,” his alter ego Val Jarrett carried on secret talks with the mullahs, resulting in today’s total surrender. Today we have a fuzzy “framework” (that Iran denies even agreeing to), which gives the world thirteen years before the mullahs can set off Armageddon. After thirteen years, all bets are off, assuming the enemy doesn’t violate its “promises” tomorrow, which it has a long history of doing.

This is not sane.

If you drive through California’s Central Valley, you will see, along both sides of the ribbon of highway, acres of scorched earth. The arid land goes on in some places as far as the eye can see. This land was once rich in fruits, nuts, and vegetables. Now it is a wasteland, a seemingly endless expanse of brown, dry, and barren earth.

Periodically you will see a billboard, welcoming you to the manmade California desert, which displays mocking appreciation for some of our more notable Democratic elected officials who have helped in this creation.

President Obama continued his so far unrequited courtship of Fidel and Raúl Castro on Tuesday by removing Cuba from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism.

The decision, following Mr. Obama’s weekend meeting with Raúl in Panama, certifies that Cuba had provided no support for international terrorism for the past six months. The certification adds that “the Government of Cuba has provided assurances that it will not support acts of international terrorism in the future.” Well, that’s certainly reassuring.

Rising extremism in Hungary is one of the most alarming political developments in Europe. The latest sign came Sunday when voters in the country’s western Tapolca district elected a candidate from the far-right Jobbik party in a special vote. If the result is officially confirmed, it will be the first time Jobbik has won a parliamentary seat in a by-election rather than through party lists.

Jobbik is the third most powerful party in Hungary. In last year’s general election, it garnered 20% of ballots. The party is openly anti-Semitic. A Jobbik leader in 2012 called on the government to “tally up people of Jewish ancestry” since they “pose a national security risk.” A Jobbik member of Parliament has spat on a Budapest Holocaust memorial.

A new index to chart the gap between political words and deeds.

Just in time for Wednesday’s nationwide walk-out by fast-food workers to demand a higher minimum wage, Hillary Clinton emailed supporters this week to complain about pay differentials in American business. According to Reuters, Mrs. Clinton griped that “the average CEO makes about 300 times what the average worker makes.”

Many of these CEOs can only wish they were rewarded for their time as handsomely as Mrs. Clinton is. The expected 2016 Democratic presidential nominee has been paid as much as $300,000 per speech.

“Look at all the countries where Islam is dominant. Look at Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan. Non-Muslims, Christians, Jews, women, gays and apostates are treated there as inferior. They are being humiliated, persecuted, and even murdered. That is exactly what we are fighting against.” — Geert Wilders.

“We have enough of the political correctness. We have enough of the Islamization of our societies. We stand for freedom, for the truth. Because we think that without freedom, life is not worth living. Freedom and human rights — that is what we stand for.” — Geert Wilders.

“Every day, we hear the same mantra that Islam is a religion of peace. After every atrocity committed in the name of Islam, Barack Obama, David Cameron, Angela Merkel and my own Prime Minister rush to the television cameras to declare that these acts have noting to do with Islam. How stupid do they think we are?” — Geert Wilders.

“Dear friends, German patriots, look at Israel, learn from Israel. Israel is an island in a sea of Islamic barbarism. Israel is a beacon of freedom and prosperity in a region of Islamic darkness. Israel refuses to be overrun by the jihadists. So should we.” — Geert Wilders.

The Center for Security Policy has organized the sending of a letter to United States senators backing their stance on President Obama’s “framework agreement” with Iran. The text of the letter is below, included in a CSP press release.

Over 150 National Security Experts, Concerned Citizens Express Gratitude to Sen. Tom Cotton and Colleagues for Leadership on Iran

Washington, DC— Today, over 150 national security experts, former Senior military and government leaders, public policy practitioners and other American patriots have written to Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) and 46 other United States Senators. They expressed their gratitude for the letter they wrote to the Iran’s leaders serving notice on them that in accordance with the United States Constitution, any agreement between President Obama and Ayatollah Khamenei reach on Iran’s nuclear program will be considered to be only an executive agreement that can be revoked by the next president or modified by congress — unless it is approved by the legislative branch.

The letter, organized by the Center for Security Policy, states in part:

“Given the chimerical nature of the so-called framework agreement — which is, at the moment, being characterized in wildly different ways by the various parties, raising profound uncertainty about the nature and extent of the commitments Iran is making, their actual value in preventing an Iranian nuclear weapons program, the timing and extent of sanctions relief, etc. — the need for congressional oversight, advice and consent concerning any accord that flows from that agreement can no longer responsibly be denied.“

Hon. Geert Wilders, leader of the Dutch Freedom Party spoke at the 22nd weekly PEGIDA rally in Dresden yesterday. PEGIDA stands for Patriotic Europeans Against Islamilization of the West. A crowd of more than 10,000 gathered to hear him. Below is an English translation of his speech. A You Tube video of his address before the Dresden PEGIDA rally can be found at the 40 minute mark . Our thanks to our colleagues at the Gates of Vienna for posting this English translation:

ISIS terrorists continue to butcher people while hacking into a French television network. Iran’s quest for nuclear weapons remains on track. In a nation of 320 million people, American businesses hired only 126,000 workers in March, amid a pathetic 62 percent labor participation rate. Wages and incomes are stagnant.

And yet President Obama remains fixated on one obsession: dangerous manmade climate change. He blames it for everything from global temperatures that have been stable for 18 years, to hurricanes that have not made U.S. landfall for nearly 9.5 years, and even asthma and allergies. He is determined to use it to impose energy, environmental and economic policies that will “fundamentally transform” our nation.

He launched his war on coal with a promise that companies trying to build new coal-fired power plants would go bankrupt; implemented policies that caused oil and gas production to plunge 6 percent on federal lands, even as it rose 60 percent on state and private lands; proclaimed that he will compel the United States to slash its carbon dioxide emissions 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025, and 80 percent by 2050; and wants electricity prices to “necessarily skyrocket.” His Environmental Protection Agency has led the charge.