"Ask the Rabbi" by R. Mermelstein
QUESTION: Dear Rabbi
Mermelstein:
[The question below was first posed to the webmaster]
May I ask if the Gun Owner's Alliance is largely Jewish, and also, are you Jewish yourself?
Anonymous
13 August 2004
[The webmaster responded directly below]
May I ask what your reasons/motivations are for asking? You have my deepest curiosities.
Sincerely,
Gun Owners Alliance
Chris W. Stark - Director
13 August 2004
[The webmaster received this reply to my question from the Anonymous sender]
Sure. The Jewish race is infamous for being anti-gun. Out of every 100 Jews, 97 are anti-gun. In fact, all of the major anti-gun laws in the U.S. have come from Jews, despite the fact that Jews have tried hard to claim otherwise [e.g. the 1968 gun control act, which came from Celler's bill and not from a gentile bill as many Jews try to claim].
Furthermore, even many of the pro-gun Jews deny the heavy Jewish involvement in gun control, e.g. "what?? Oh, your just a hate-monger," and so on, as I have heard dozens of times and will hear dozens of times more...in fact, the odd silence about Jewish involvement in gun control is.....odd.
Please feel free to write back and call me a Nazi, hater, bigot, or whatever term is fashionable these days...
Anonymous
13 August 2004
[The webmaster forwarded the correspondence to Rabbi R. Mermelstein for a reply]
ANSWER: Dear Sir,
You are correct that many Jews are
anti-gun. I've been battling that mentality in very public forums for
years. Anti-gun Jews, in fact nearly all Jews regardless of their
political leanings, are urban dwellers. Look at the voting records of
congressmen and senators on any firearms or hunting issue and you will
see a clear pattern. This cultural schism engulfs both Jews and
Christians. I am one of the pro-gun Jews to whom you refer. Instead of
denying the disproportionate involvement of Jews screaming for
"sensible gun control" (whatever that means) or for outright bans and
wholesale confiscation, I've named names and called them historical
ignoramuses in print. The odd silence you mention may emanate from
elsewhere, but I've bellowed like a foghorn against Jewish anti-gun
voices beginning in 1998. To see just one such essay, go to http://www.gunownersalliance.com/Rabbi_0061.htm
Do my actions vindicate Jews who are diametrically opposed to my views?
Unfortunately, the answer is no. Jews (and Judaism is a faith, not a
race) have no clerical hierarchy with one head honcho or a board of
directors setting policy and calling the shots. Not knowing what you
know or don't know about the broad spectrum of Jews and their political
stripes in America, it may come as a surprise for you to learn that
there are Jews who associate with the label purely out of accident of
birth. We adhere to matrilineal descent, meaning that the child of a
Jewish mother is Jewish until death regardless of his or her level of
religious observance or total lack of it. There are Jews who are
staunch Republicans, Democrats, and pro-life and pro-choice advocates.
How or why they think as they do has little if anything to do with the
biological accident that they were born to Jewish mothers.
Believe it or not, I find it very understandable that someone from a
part of America where Jews are seldom if ever found would think as you
do. Notice that I haven't called you an anti-Semite, since the level of
your knowledge of Judaism is an unknown quantity to me. I can, one
moment, gag listening to a diatribe from Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson,
who are black, and the next moment sit enthralled listening to the
political astuteness and crystal clear thinking of Larry Elder, who is
also black. So here are black men whose views are as distant as the
North from the South poles. Painting all people of African descent with
the old broad brush is not merely ignorant. It defies logic and common
sense, since the evidence eschews a blanket characterization of a group
of people based on their common characteristics. And the same is the
case with the Jews, Catholics, Baptists, or any group you can name. No
two people from within any group will agree on everything from A to Z
on any topic under the sun.
You can continue to tar Jews as the major force behind schemes to
disarm you and I, but at the same time listen to oratory from the
mouths of white and black Protestant clergymen also demanding more and
more gun control. What irks me most when these remarks come from Jews
is that of all people they should be the strongest proponents of the
right to keep and bear arms against tyrannical governments.
I could go on, but I've done the best I could to make a point in the
fewest possible words. I am at your service if you'd like more
information. If your mind is made up there's little I can do to change
it.
Sincerely,
R. Mermelstein
Comment from webmaster: I continued to receive
questions
from this person which turned out to be very racist in nature. Then he
tried to turn me against Rabbi Mermelstein. This is why he originally
asked me if I was a Jew. As he later stated to me, "...if you are not
Jewish, you would do well to listen to my words about Jews as a group
[1]. I am very knowledgeable about such matters as race-and-gun
control......in fact, I am a nationalist - and also a pro-gun
activist....". So now his true colors are coming out! He
claimed to be a Nationalist, which believe that various races such as
Jews, are an inferior race and the root cause of most ills in society,
and that "White Aryan" people are the superior race. They also
believe Jews (and other non-white races) should be exterminated
(murdered), even as Adolph Hitler
set out to do.
Folks, our work is far from finished! We need YOUR help to accomplish it! Stay tuned!
Chris W. Stark - "Ask the Rabbi" webmaster
22 August 2004
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