RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.jns.org/50th-anniversary-of-leningrad-trial-sparks-memories-and-educational-initiatives/

The foiled takeover of a plane in the USSR prompted worldwide involvement in the Soviet Jewry movement, even though those in “Operation Wedding” paid a price for their actions.

(December 15, 2020 / JNS) On Dec. 15, 1970, a small item appeared at the top of page three of The New York Times under the jarring headline, ‘Soviets Reported Trying 11, Mostly Jews, in Hijacking.’ Few could have predicted that the trial of those young Jewish activists held in a grim Leningrad courtroom would transform the lives of millions of people on both sides of the Iron Curtain.

The accused were part of a group that tried to carry out a plan in June 1970 to take over a small plane that would then fly under the radar across the Soviet border to freedom.

It was a radical scheme whose goal was to focus attention on the plight of Jews in the Soviet Union and their desire to emigrate. Those who took part were seasoned activists who understood that there was a far greater likelihood of being killed or arrested than of reaching Sweden, but they went ahead anyway. The result? Arrests, death sentences, long years in the Gulag—and the jumpstart to a movement that ultimately brought freedom to millions of Soviet Jews, and strengthened the identity and commitment to Jewish peoplehood of untold others in the West.

Fifty years later, the names of those courageous young Soviet Jews and their daring deed, called “Operation Wedding” (the Jewish activists claimed to be traveling together to a wedding), remain largely forgotten. Many of those involved wonder why the Jewish world has paid little attention to such a positive, inspiring and dramatic movement. Now, two new educational initiatives, one in Hebrew and the other in English, hold the promise of reviving interest.

“I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December 7th, 1941, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese empire.”

Yesterday, December 7th, 1941 — a date which will live in infamy — the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.

The United States was at peace with that nation and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with its government and its emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific.

Indeed, one hour after Japanese air squadrons had commenced bombing in the American island of Oahu, the Japanese ambassador to the United States and his colleague delivered to our Secretary of State a formal reply to a recent American message. And while this reply stated that it seemed useless to continue the existing diplomatic negotiations, it contained no threat or hint of war or of armed attack.

It will be recorded that the distance of Hawaii from Japan makes it obvious that the attack was deliberately planned many days or even weeks ago. During the intervening time, the Japanese government has deliberately sought to deceive the United States by false statements and expressions of hope for continued peace.

The attack yesterday on the Hawaiian islands has caused severe damage to American naval and military forces. I regret to tell you that very many American lives have been lost. In addition, American ships have been reported torpedoed on the high seas between San Francisco and Honolulu.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/10/the-lies-were-told-about-the-american-story/#slide-1

“We are Americans. And we set people free.”

We’re not a racist nation. We’re a nation that wars against racism.

Editor’s Note: The following essay was adapted from remarks delivered to the annual dinner of the Lincoln Club of Orange County, in California, on October 4.

Every American heart must break when lies are told to boys and girls, who then grow up to think the worst about their past: that the American Revolution was fought to preserve slavery; that the Civil War was about money, not slaves; or that America is a racist nation.

Of course, Americans didn’t create slavery. America was born to a world in which that savagery was as old and deeply rooted as anything in human history. The Greeks and Romans kept slaves. The Israelites were slaves to the Egyptians, and 500 years after they were freed, King Solomon built the temple to his God with slaves. The Spanish brought slaves to North America 200 years before the American founding, and, in 1776, Europe’s leading states — Spain, France, Portugal, Britain, and the Netherlands — each traded in slaves.

From the beginning, Americans were split wide open about slavery. In her book Team of Rivals, Doris Kearns Goodwin tells a story from 1835 about William Seward and his wife, Frances, two New Yorkers, who took a trip through the South. Riding in their carriage around sunset, the couple saw a dust cloud rising down the road. Emerging slowly from the dust, Seward wrote, were:

ten naked little boys, between six and twelve years old, tied together, two by two, by their wrists, . . . all fastened to a long rope, and followed by a tall, gaunt white man, who, with his long lash, whipped up the sad and weary little procession, drove it to the horse trough to drink, and thence to a shed where they lay down on the ground and sobbed and moaned themselves to sleep. These were children gathered up at different plantations . . . and were to be driven down to Richmond to be sold at auction, and taken south.