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The Jewish Invention of the Alphabet
n Ancient Egypt, Hieroglyphics was the formal writing system. It combined logo-graphic, syllabic and alphabetic elements, with some 1,000 distinct characters. The first decipherable sentence written in Hieroglyphs dates to 2700 BCE.

But after more than a thousand years of highly complex Cuneiform and Hieroglyphics, a new simple form of writing was created that revolutionized communication, enabling the common man, for the first time ever, to read and write.

Creation of the Alphabet
The idea of an alphabetic writing system was conceived only once in history, and all known alphabets derive from that seminar script. The method for creating the alphabet was fairly simple. There are some 1000 Egyptian hieroglyphs or pictures denoting words or syllables. The alphabet creators took 22 of these pictures, but instead of connecting them to their Egyptian words, they used the first letter of the corresponding Semitic word and turned it into a single letter. The modern Hebrew reader can often make out the connection between the hieroglyph and the Hebrew letter. For instance, the hieroglyph that serves as the basis for the Hebrew letter Ayin is a human eye. The symbol for a house (bayit) became the Hebrew letter Bet, the symbol for a snake (nahash in Hebrew) became the letter Nun and the symbol for water (mayim) became the letter Mem.

This new writing system was a remarkable stroke of genius. Instead of using hundreds of signs, there were now fewer than 30 to memorize, and these served to indicate single sounds. But this small number of characters sufficed to represent every single word in the language. Furthermore, instead of applying a complex set of reading rules, the alphabet offered one, fixed reading method. While containing only a fraction of the symbols of Hieroglyphics and Cuneiform, the alphabet also enabled far more intricate sentences.

Archaeological Discoveries
How do we know how the alphabet was created? In 1905 Sir Flinders Petrie, the father of Egyptian archaeology, along with his wife Hilda, discovered several hieroglyphic-like inscriptions in ancient Egyptian copper and turquoise mines located in the southern Sinai peninsula.

Petrie initially thought these were regular Egyptian texts. But since they comprised the repeated use of a very small repertoire of the overall number of hieroglyphs, he identified these awkward signs as an alphabetic script derived from Egyptian symbols. And yet he was unable to read them.

Some ten years later the script was deciphered by the premier linguist of his day, the famous English Egyptologist, Sir Alan Gardiner. He identified the language as early Semitic “Canaanite”. The script became known as "Proto-Sinaitic" and was dated to the late Middle Bronze Age. It was later found to be in use between 1800 and 1500 BCE.

Hebrew, as the world's oldest alphabet, was first asserted in the 1920's by German Prof. Hubert Grimme, an expert in Semitic languages. Later W. F. Albright, the father of Biblical Archaeology, popularized the idea that these Semitic writings were the work of Israelite slaves.

“Phoenician”
Despite early recognition of the world's first alphabet as Hebrew, this understanding was eventually rejected in favor of a Phoenician origin. During the Middle Egyptian Kingdom era there were six Semitic peoples living in the Canaanite area: Israelites, Phoenicians, Amorites, Ammonites, Moabites and Edomites. The Phoenicians (modern day Lebanon) were known as seafaring merchants who traveled between Canaan and many other lands, including Egypt. They therefore could have connected the Egyptian hieroglyphs with the Canaanite words.

The Encyclopaedia Britannica calls Phoenician, "the probable ancestor of all Western alphabets." And the United Nations claims that the Phoenician alphabet was "the prototype for all alphabets in the world."

But this is weird, because the oldest examples of the Proto-Sinaitic script significantly predate the existence of Phoenician culture and don't come from Phoenicia. Furthermore, the experts couldn't fit Phoenician words with the text. And since no other (non-Hebrew) Semitic languages were able to yield any meaningful translations either, these historically vital inscriptions languished unreadable for over a century.

It Can't Be Hebrew!
Hebrew, by the way, wasn't even considered an option. The experts claimed that the Israelites in Egypt, if they existed at all, could not have been there that early. They also said that the gap between the first alphabet and earliest Hebrew writing found in the Land of Israel was just too wide. The earliest Hebrew writing, the Khirbet Keiyafa Ostracon, found near the central Israeli city of Beit Shemesh, was dated to 1000 BCE. The creation of the alphabet was at least 500 years earlier. If they were related, why weren't earlier Hebrew scripts discovered?

The lead curse tablet, Michael C. Luddeni | Associates for Biblical Research (ABR)

en, just two years ago, archaeologist Scott Stripling, working on Mount Ebal, just north of the Samarian city of Shechem, made an amazing discovery. His team found an ancient Hebrew curse tablet (defixio) made of a folded lead sheet about an inch high and an inch wide (2.5 by 2.5 cm). The tablet's inscription reads, "Cursed, cursed, cursed — cursed by the God Yahweh". Amazingly the tablet was found next to what some believe is Joshua's altar and in the location the Bible tells us that the Jewish people were commanded by God to curse those who violated the Divine commandments. This new find was dated to about 1400 BCE. Egyptian scarabs found the site date from the same time period. In contrast, no extant inscription in the Phoenician alphabet is older than 1050 BCE. This makes the Hebrew connection by far the closest.

From Egypt to Canaan
The oldest Proto-Sinatic text dates to about 1800 BCE with the latest from the late 1500s BCE. After that, the alphabet stops appearing in Egypt and suddenly pops-up in Canaan. What Semitic people were known to have lived in Egypt and then suddenly moved to the Land of Israel? The scholars were mystified. In Canaan it rapidly caught on with the various peoples living there and evolved into the Paleo-Hebrew and Paleo-Canaanite scripts more familiar to scholars.

Two-in-One
To be able to create the alphabet, the inventor had to master two very different fields of knowledge. On the one hand he had to have an understanding of written language in general and hieroglyphics in particular, such that only a royal Egyptian insider would have. On the other hand, he had to be a native Semitic speaker with a strong Semitic identity, in order to have both the ability and desire to create a Semitic alphabet. This combination is so extraordinary as to seem almost impossible and yet the Bible describes exactly such a person – Jacob’s son Joseph, who ended up becoming the viceroy of Egypt, and his two sons, Ephraim and Menashe.

The conception of the alphabet also required a high level of creativity, which the Jewish People have demonstrated in spades.

Grammatical Similarities
There is also a unique grammatical connection between Egyptian hieroglyphics and Hebrew. Hieroglyphics uses the definite particle (like “the” in English) to talk about a specific object. Dr. Brian Rickett of the Mikra Research Laboratory notes that, of all the Semitic languages, only Hebrew also uses the definite particle (“ha”). None of the other Semitic languages have this element.


This bulla bears the words “to Natan-Melech, servant of the king.” Written in the Old Hebrew script, it dates to the sixth century B.C.E. and possibly refers to the court official mentioned in 2 Kings 23:11. Credit: Eliyahu Yanai / Public domain

Though the academic establishment has long held that the Phoenicians were behind the alphabet's creation – this assumption was recently challenged by a group of modern scholars. They say the original assumption of Hebrew was correct. These scholars include world renowned Egyptologist David Rohl, Prof. Douglas Petrovich and ancient Hebrew language expert Rabbi Michael S. Bar-Ron. Petrovich even wrote a book about his discoveries, “Hebrew – The World’s Oldest Alphabet”, by Jerusalem publisher Carta. But Petrovich and Bar-Ron went further than just identifying the language as Hebrew – they actually deciphered the texts. What they revealed was astounding.

Petrovich found references to several people mentioned in the Torah. These include Asenath – wife of Joseph, Hovav, the son of Yitro and Ahisamach – the father of Oholiav who helped lead the construction of the tabernacle and the holy ark.


For example, according to Petrovich, the SINAI 375a inscription names Ahisamach, a master craftsman at the turquoise mines, “The overseer of Minerals, Ahisamach”. This fits in perfectly with the Biblical text, as his son Oholiab, a master craftsman himself, would have learned his skills from his father. The corresponding Biblical verse reads, "And behold, I Myself have appointed with him [Bezalel], Oholiab, the son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan; and in the hearts of all who are adept I have put skill, that they may make all that I have commanded you: the tent of meeting, and the ark of testimony … " (Exodus 31:1–11)

Most incredible of all was the discovery of an inscription with a direct reference to Moses in a stone slab referred to as SINAI 361. It reads: "Our bound servitude had lingered. Moses then provoked astonishment.” Dated to 1446 BC, this inscription written by the Hebrew miners at Serabit el-Khadim in Sinai references the oppression of Israel under the 18th dynasty pharaohs and the ten plagues of Egypt.

Cursing the Golden Calf


When Bar-Ron translated the SINAI 249 inscription, he found a polemic against the idol Ba`alat and the Jews who worshiped her.

SINAI 349
Lo I cut down the gate of the Accursed One!
Those [belonging to] Ba'alat are worthless!
Give answer to our brothers:
“Shame on you that have committed this disgrace.”
They have committed sin! They have committed sin!

Ba`alat is the West Semitic name for Hathor, the golden cow goddess of Egypt and the goddess of Love. Sinai-based Serabit el-Khadim, where the inscription was found, was the location of a major temple of Hathor. It is located only three days walking distance from the traditional location of Mount Sinai. Egyptologist David Rohl noted that Ba`alat is a perfect fit for the Golden Calf that the Israelites worshiped at Sinai.

The "Hymn to Hathor", circa 1500 BCE, includes these words:

Come, oh Golden One, who eats of praise, because the food of her desire is dancing,
Who shines on the festival at the time of lighting, who is content with the dancing at night.
'Come!
The procession is in the place of inebriation, that hall of traveling through the marshes.

See how closely this matches the description in the Book of Exodus:

Exodus 32: 3 – All the people took off their (gold) earrings and brought them to Aaron. He took them and formed them into a mold of a calf. "This Israel is your god, who brought you out of Egypt!"
Exodus 32:19 – As he approached the camp, he saw the calf and the dancing; and Moses' anger waxed hot, and he cast the tablets out of his hands, and broke them beneath the mount.

Even the English alphabet we use today originated with same primordial alphabet created by the Jews in Egypt almost 4000 years ago. Future discoveries will continue to shed light on this fascinating subject.

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The Journalist Who Stood Up to Hitler
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by Kylie Ora Lobell
August 15, 2023
5 min read

Dorothy Thompson was the first foreign journalist that Hitler expelled in the lead up to the war, and she used her voice to advocate for the Jewish People.

In 1931, Dorothy Thompson, an American journalist stationed in Europe, was writing a profile piece on a new leader emerging in Germany: Adolf Hitler. This was two years before he was to be elected chancellor of Germany, become a dictator, start World War II and eventually murder 6 million Jews in the Holocaust.

When Thompson first met Hitler to write the profile, she said she “was convinced that I was meeting the future dictator of Germany.” But after less than a minute of talking to Hitler – the man who failed to rise to power during the Beer Hall Putsch and then wrote the hateful “Mein Kampf” in prison – she determined that he was a nobody.

Dorothy Thompson, testifying to Congress in support of repealing the Neutrality Acts, April 1939. US Holocaust Memorial Museum.

“It took just about that time to measure the startling insignificance of this man who has set the world agog,” she wrote.
During the interview, Hitler admitted that if he did come to power, he would establish an authority-state: “Everywhere there will be responsibility and authority above, discipline and obedience below,” he said.

The profile piece turned into a hit piece; Thompson, a former women’s rights activist with the suffrage movement, said this “magnificent propagandist” was “inconsequent and voluble, ill-poised, insecure. He is the very prototype of the Little Man.”

Thompson’s profile, titled “I Saw Hitler!” appeared in a 1932 issue of Cosmopolitan and then was reprinted into a book of the same title.

Several months after the article was published, Hitler came to power. Realizing that she had woefully underestimated this evil man, Thompson wrote a number of negative articles about him, which caught his eye – and ultimately losing her position as a foreign correspondent.

In 1934, the secret police visited Thompson in her hotel room, and she was given an order to leave Germany within 48 hours. She was the first foreign journalist expelled from the country, and she landed on the front page of papers around the globe.

“As far as I can see, I was really put out of Germany for the crime of blasphemy,” she said. “My offense was to think that Hitler is just an ordinary man, after all. That is a crime in the reigning cult in Germany, which says Mr. Hitler is a messiah sent of God to save the German people.”

Trying to take down Hitler – and fighting for Jews
Though Thompson had to leave Germany, due to her expulsion, her career skyrocketed. She started writing a column for the New York Herald Tribune that was syndicated to more than 100 different newspapers, and she was a guest on NBC radio and wrote a regular column for Ladies’ Home Journal. In her writing and radio work, Thompson constantly criticized Hitler and the Nazis and advocated for the Jewish people to establish their own state..

In 1938, the journalist released a book called “Refugees: Anarchy or Organization?” where she fought on behalf of refugees from both the Spanish Civil War and Germany, saying, they “could bring to a new country resources of skill which would increase its wealth and trade.”


When Herschel Grynszpan, a Jewish German student, killed a German diplomat – which led to Kristallnacht – Thompson broadcasted, “I want to talk about that boy. I feel as though I knew him, for in the past five years I have met so many whose story is the same — the same except for this unique desperate act. Herschel Grynzspan was one of the hundreds of thousands of refugees whom the terror east of the Rhine has turned loose in the world.”

Americans heard Thompson’s broadcast and raised $40,000 for Grynszpan’s legal defense. Unfortunately, the trial never ended up being held. The Gestapo seized him and he was presumed to have been killed; what really happened still remains a mystery.

The next year, when Nazi sympathizers hosted a rally at Madison Square Garden in 1939, Thompson disrupted it by laughing during the speeches, and the police had to remove her for her own safety.

At the February 1939 German American Bund rally at Madison Square Garden in New York City, Dorothy Thompson heckled the pro-Nazi speakers, and had to be escorted out of the arena for her own safety.
She repeatedly brought up the horrific atrocities Nazis were inflicting onto the Jews and urged the American government to take action.

In a broadcast, she stated, “They are holding every Jew in Germany as a hostage. Therefore, we who are not Jews must speak, speak our sorrow and indignation and disgust in so many voices that they will be heard.”

Thompson’s legacy in the world of journalism and beyond
Thompson was not afraid to speak out against Hitler in a time when others were. She was dubbed the “First Lady of American Journalism” and became almost as influential as First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. One biographer wrote that Thompson became “the leading American voice in the war against fascism.”
Though the journalist quickly rose to fame, after the war, she did not retain her celebrity status. She also had opinions that landed her in hot water with her publishers and she changed her views on Zionism.

However, her influence cannot be understated. She risked her own safety to stand up to pure evil – and will forever be remembered for her bravery.

As Thompson herself wrote, “There is nothing to fear except the persistent refusal to find out the truth.”

Though the journalist quickly rose to fame, after the war, she did not retain her celebrity status. She also had opinions that landed her in hot water with her publishers and she changed her views on Zionism.

However, her influence cannot be understated. She risked her own safety to stand up to pure evil – and will forever be remembered for her bravery.

As Thompson herself wrote, “There is nothing to fear except the persistent refusal to find out the truth.”

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5 Ways to Jumpstart Your Personal Growth
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by Rabbi Nechemia Coopersmith
August 31, 2022
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This is the best time of year to shake things up.

1. Strengthen Your Free Will Muscles
Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, literally means “head of the year.” It’s referred to as the head because the New Year is the time to attain clarity and vision about your life’s purpose and goals for the upcoming year.

The Hebrew month of Elul, which began this week, is the last month of the year. If Rosh Hashanah is the head, Elul – the end of the year – is signified by the feet. In Hebrew, a foot is regel, which shares the same Hebrew root as “habit,” moving mindlessly on auto pilot.

The mandate of the end of the Jewish year is to reconnect it to the previous Rosh Hashanah when you were burning with passion to accomplish clearly defined goals. Now is the time to shake off the dust of complacency and to infuse this last month with the vitality you had at the beginning of the year.

When you live by habit, you’re sleepwalking, going through the motions, and letting your free will muscles atrophy. The most important thing you can do to jumpstart your spiritual growth is to stop being a zombie and strengthen your free will muscles by making active choices.

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That's why every morning during the month of Elul the shofar is blown. It’s your daily reminder to wake up! Break your routine, wrestle with your lethargy, go to battle with your laziness, negativity, and repeat cycles of giving up.

Reconnect to your greatest gift: your free will.

How?

Pick one clearly defined act that you can commit to for the next four weeks, something that requires a real effort (but manageable) and will lift you out of the dross of your habituated life. It may be committing to exercise for 15 minutes a day – no matter what, giving one person a sincere compliment every day, doing something that is out of your comfort zone.

Each mini victory is significant. You’ll feel empowered, confident, unstuck. It can show you that with hard work, change is possible, and give you the initial momentum you need to move further.

2. Put More Focus on Your Most Important Relationships
Interpersonal relationships are the primary training ground for spiritual growth. How you treat others is the most concrete way to excel in giving and become more like God, the Ultimate Giver.

It’s common for people to treat their coworkers and strangers better than their spouse and children. It’s easy to take for granted your most important relationships – after all, they’re always there.

Until they aren’t.

Don’t take your spouse and kids for granted. This month, put them at the top of your priority list. Spend more quality – and quantity – time, be extra considerate, affectionate, and attentive.

3. Waste Less Time
The plethora of streaming platforms and social media feeds generate a tsunami of distraction and, let’s face it, causes us to waste oodles of time. If you want to show up on Rosh Hashanah and plead your case for another year of life, you need to demonstrate that you value your time and are serious about using it meaningfully.

Where can you cut back on killing time?

4. Do More Jewish
Take on doing one additional spiritual practice that you find meaningful. It may be reading an inspiring book, taking a weekly online class about a Jewish subject, or having a family Shabbat dinner filled with good food, meaningful conversation and song. Think about something that resonates with you, and make sure it’s not too daunting.

5. Have a Heart-to-Heart with God
Even if you’re not the crunchy-granola spiritual type or a Hasid in the making, consider giving this a shot. The Jewish concept of God – an Infinite, Eternal, All-Encompassing Being Who has no form – is very abstract, and it's easy to relegate this transcendent Being to the Heavens while you go about your life on earth.

Work on making God tangible, right here, right now. Open up your heart and talk to Him, share your feelings, your fears, your anger, whatever is on your mind or weighing down your heart. It doesn’t have to be in a synagogue, or with a prayer book. God is everywhere, aware, listening; just find some quiet alone time and confide in Him. And keep at it. You may be surprised to see how having those heart-to-heart chats makes you feel connected to Him.

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https://aish.com/bradley-coopers-fake-jewish-nose/?src=ac
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BRADLEY COOPER’S FAKE "JEWISH" NOSE

DR. YVETTE ALT MILLER
A look at the surprising long history of the slur against "Jewish noses."
A look at the surprising long history of the slur against “Jewish noses.”

When Netflix released the first images from its upcoming movie Maestro, about the great Jewish American conductor Leonard Bernstein, the stills from the movie caused an uproar. Bradley Cooper, who is starring and directing the film, donned a large prosthetic nose to portray the famous musician. (The just-released trailer has reignited the debate.)

Cooper, who is not Jewish, has been accused of “Jewface,” the exaggerated portrayal of Jewish characters by non-Jewish actors, who sometimes resort to stereotypes that can veer dangerously close to antisemitic tropes. As James Hirsh, a co-host of the Menschwarmers podcast has noted, “This is Cooper’s third time portraying a historical figure on screen. No prosthetics were used to play American Sniper’s Chris Kyle or Licorice Pizza’s Jon Peters. He didn’t use them to play the Elephant Man on Broadway.” Why suddenly don a fake nose now?

Comparing photos from Netflix’s movie with actual pictures of Leonard Bernstein, the contrast between the two images is noticeable: Cooper’s nose appears larger than Bernstein’s. (My middle school son laughed when I showed him the images, observing that Cooper’s overly large schnoz looks “like blackface for Jews”.)
Bradley Cooper as Leonard Bernstein
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I get that acting is all about creating an illusion. Some of the most well-known Jewish characters on the silver screen have been played by non-Jews (British actor Ben Kingsley playing Itzak Stern in Schindler’s List, Italian actor Robert Benigni playing Guido Orefice in Life is Beautiful, and Hellen Mirren as Golda Meir in an upcoming movie). I’m sure that Bradley Cooper can perform ably as Leonard Bernstein – but why the huge nose? (Bernstein's three children released a letter supporting Cooper's portrayal and prosthetic nose.)

Sadly, there’s a long and ignominious history of portraying Jews with huge noses. “The visual sources for and fundamental meaning of these features are no mystery,” observes Dr. Sara Lipton, Professor of Medieval History at Stonybrook University in New York and the author of Dark Mirror: The Medieval Origins of Anti-Jewish Iconography (2014).

In the Middle Ages, it was common for Christian artists to depict the Devil as a quasi-animalistic creature with a grotesque, animal-like nose. “Long or large, downward-curved, snout-like or beak-like noses, especially when combined with brutish expressions and shaggy beards, had long served as visual indicators of bestiality, brutality, irrationality, and evil,” she notes. In about the 1200s, Christian artists began to depict Jews with these exaggerated features, drawing huge noses on Jewish subjects as a marker of their supposed evil. The idea of a “Jewish nose” became firmly embedded in the collective Western imagination.

Let’s get one thing straight: Jewish noses are no larger than non-Jewish ones.

If you don’t believe me, consult the research of the late anthropologist Dr. Maurice Fishberg. Born in 1872 in Russia (present day Ukraine), Dr. Fishberg moved to New York in 1889, where he studied medicine and became a noted physician.

Aren’t their noses just about the same without the prothesis?

At the time, the burgeoning study of eugenics posited that some races were superior to others. Dr. Fishberg wondered if many of the slurs against Jews - including that their supposedly large noses reflected shady morals - had any scientific basis. In 1911, Dr. Fishberg set out to settle the question of whether Jewish noses really were much larger than the average non-Jewish proboscis (a fancy way of saying nose). He meticulously measured the noses of a whopping 4,000 Jews and compared them with others.

His conclusion? The noses of Jews are not statistically larger - as a group - than the noses of anyone else.

His findings failed to budge the persistent myth that Jewish noses are unusually large. Twenty-seven years later, the notorious Nazi propagandist Julius Streicher published his famously influential children’s book Der Giftpilz (The Poisonous Mushroom) in which he ominously told a generation of German children, “One can most easily tell a Jew by his nose. The Jewish nose is bent at its point. It looks like the number six… Many Gentiles also have bent noses. But their noses bend upwards, not downwards. Such a nose is a hook nose or an eagle nose. It is not at all like a Jewish nose.”

Nazi propaganda routinely depicted Jews with grotesque, exaggerated noses. When Otto Dietrich, the Nazi Reich press chief from 1937 to 1945 was convicted of war crimes after the Holocaust, the judge noted in his decision that “It is…clear that a well thought-out, oft-repeated, persistent campaign to arouse the hatred of the German people against Jews was fostered and directed by the press department and its press chief…” Routinely printing distorted images of Jews with grotesque noses was a key part of that propaganda. (Quoted from The Jewish Enemy: Nazi Propaganda During World War II and the Holocaust by Jeffrey Herf: 2006.)

Even the medical profession has long disregarded the fact that Jews’ noses are no larger, on average, than other people’s noses. “For over a century, the term the ‘Jewish nose’ has been used in Western scientific literature to describe a set of physical features thought to constitute a distinct, race-based deformity,” notes plastic surgeon Dr. Beth Preminger.

She notes that in 1850, the well-known anthropologist Robert Knox wrote that Jews’ faces are marred by “a large, massive, club-shaped, hooked nose, three or four times larger than suits the face…Thus it is that the Jewish face never can (be), and never is, perfectly beautiful.” So much for scientific objectivity.

Medical journals and textbooks have long openly advocated the surgical “fixing” of “Jewish” noses. In 1930, Dr. William Wesley Carter wrote that “the modification of accentuated family or racial characteristics, such as are sometimes observable especially in Semitic subjects…is frequently of great importance to the individual.” As recently as 1996, one surgical manual described how to “correct” a “Jewish nose”. Another 1998 textbook discussing rhinoplasty (nose jobs) described patients undergoing the procedure as being “of Jewish ancestry” or of “Jewish descent”.

These attitudes led a whole generation of Jewish women to go under the knife in order to “fix” their so-called “Jewish noses”. One actress who resisted the lure of a nose job is Barbra Streisand, and she was often asked about this unusual decision. In one 1985 interview with Barbara Walters, Barbra Streisand felt the need to justify her decision to keep her natural nose: “Well, first of all I didn’t have the money to have my nose fixed - even if I had thought about it, which I did think about it. The real reason is I didn’t trust the doctors to make my nose right…I thought my nose went with my face, ya know, it’s all rather odd.”

Some stereotypes about the “Jewish nose” seem to be receding. Since 2000, for instance, the number of nose jobs done in the United States has declined by 43%. As early as 1999, Dr. H. George Brennan, a plastic surgeon, noted a new resurgence in pride among Jews who loved their noses au naturale. In the past, Dr. Brennan told The New York Times, “fixing” a “Jewish nose” “was the thing to do. You had your bat mitzvah and you got your nose done.” Increasingly this isn’t the case today.

That doesn’t mean that the myth of the huge-nosed Jews is gone.

Recently, the Amadeu Antonio Foundation, a German anti-Nazi organization, noted that harmful images of Jews depicted with exaggerated noses continue to circulate, often in far-right antisemitic publications and websites. “A big nose, a greedy gaze and sidelocks - most antisemitic images of ‘the Jew’ include these features. Frequently, these are depictions of men in expensive suits and big glasses, rubbing their hands. They paint a picture of a money-grabbing, rich man. The outward appearance that is attributed to ‘the Jew’ make him the Other, an outsider. This portrayal can be found frequently as a meme in right-wing extremist and terrorist online subcultures…”

With rates of antisemitic sentiments and crimes reaching record levels around the world, it’s time to examine our own anti-Jewish prejudices, including the false stereotype that Jews have unusually large noses. This age-old, harmful slur doesn’t belong on Netflix.

I’m looking forward to watching Maestro when it comes out, and I’m sure that Bradley Cooper will do a wonderful job portraying Leonard Bernstein. I just want him to lose the fake nose.

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 The Sacklers: When Jews Do Evil; Jewish Couple in Maui Providing Relief
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The Sacklers: Why Some Jews Do Evil
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THE SACKLERS: WHY SOME JEWS DO EVIL
SARA YOHEVED RIGLER
The Netflix series about America's opioid crisis is a warning to all of us.
The Netflix series “Painkiller,” about how the Sackler family engineered the opioid epidemic, never mentions that they are Jewish. But, as a Jew watching the docudrama, I cringed. Because everyone knows that the Sacklers are Jewish. Just like everyone knows that Bernie Madoff and Jeffrey Epstein were Jewish. Just like everyone knows that Einstein, Jonas Salk, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg were Jewish.

How could one tiny people—just 2% of the American population—produce such shining goodness and also such abysmal evil?

How could one tiny people—just 2% of the American population—produce such shining goodness and also such abysmal evil?

Historian Ken Spiro provides an answer. In his book Destiny, he writes that the mission of the Jewish People is to fix the world, to be “a light unto the nations” as the Bible puts it. The drive to improve the world was programed into the Jew’s spiritual DNA. This tremendous drive is supposed to be channeled by the rules and disciplines of the Torah, which commands honesty and integrity in business, justice and fairness in communal affairs, and kindness and compassion in personal conduct. But when Jews ignore the Torah, when they cease to inculcate its values and wisdom and live by it, their tremendous drive get derailed.

This produces the evil acts perpetuated by the Sacklers.
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As Rabbi Noah Weinberg, founder of Aish, put it:

Jews are driven. When they are connected to Judaism, they are driven to change the world. And if they are not connected to Judaism, they are just driven. And for this reason, you can’t keep the Jews down. They will always rise to the top. They will become famous doctors, top lawyers, Nobel Prize winners. And when they stop driving themselves, they will drive their children.

Sackler Legacy
“Painkiller” co-created by Micah Fitzerman-Blue, a Jew and the son of a Conservative rabbi, manages to convey the tremendous evil of Richard Sackler, laced with a thin thread of impulse to change the world. In the pivotal scene where Richard Sackler is convincing his father and uncle to hold onto Purdue Pharmaceuticals, he tells them that human beings run away from pain and run toward pleasure. “If we place ourselves right there between pain and pleasure, if we become gatekeepers for everyone who wants to get away from pain, then we have changed the world… And you will never have to worry about money ever again.”

At that early stage of the story, Richard Sackler’s greed is intertwined with his drive to change the world.

The series begins in Richard Sackler’s lavish mansion when he is awakened by the annoying beep of a smoke alarm. He searches throughout the many rooms of his mansion until he locates the offending alarm, then tries hard to silence it. Throughout the series, Richard is plagued by the recurrent beep of the smoke alarm. It is an apt metaphor for conscience. The beep that bothers him is not the loud wail set off by fire and smoke, but the quiet signal that the battery in the smoke alarm is running low. The “battery” that powers the conscience of a Jew is the moral standards of the Torah: social responsibility, compassion for the disempowered, justice that pays no heed to wealth, and the humility of knowing that God, not any man, runs the world. When that “battery” runs low, there is no effective alarm to alert the home’s residents that a fire is raging.

In “Painkiller” the beep of the smoke alarm is drowned out by the loud voice of the deceased Arthur Sackler, Richard’s uncle who launched the family’s financial success and is now haunting him. Arthur’s obsession was “legacy.” He made huge donations to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Louvre, universities, and hospitals, where the Sackler name was brandished on buildings and wings galore. His message to his children before his death was: “Leave the world a better place than when you entered it.”

They don’t. The movie, with dramatic license, portrays the devastation wrought to individuals and families by OxyContin, produced by the Sackler-owned Purdue Pharma, described as “heroin in a pill.” Almost a half million people have died of prescription drug overdoses. OxyContin is the chief culprit.

Rather than simply put OxyContin on the market as a painkiller for doctors to prescribe, Richard Sackler mobilized an army of sexy young women to cajole doctors to prescribe the drug in ever-increasing doses. Both the women and the doctors were rewarded financially and with perks for pushing the drug. According to Patrick Radden Keefe’s investigative piece that appeared in The New Yorker, “The Family that Built an Empire of Pain,” in 2001, Purdue Pharma paid 40 million dollars in bonuses to its sales force. It is a lurid story of human greed and lust, exactly the propensities that the Torah attempts to rein in.

When the Jewish drive to change the world is harnessed to Jewish wisdom and values, the result is a socially conscious and compassionate society.

Richard Sackler’s obsession is both greed and ego. Toward the end of the series, he says, “I care about making money and winning. That’s it.”

Jewish Drive
This is Jewish drive gone awry. But when the Jewish drive to change the world is harnessed to Jewish wisdom and values, the result is a socially conscious and compassionate society. Jews have been at the forefront of every movement for social improvement in American society. As Irish American scholar Thomas Cahill pointed out:

The Jews…gave us the Conscience of the West, the belief that this God who is One is not the God of outward show but the “still, small voice” of conscience, the God of compassion, … the God who cares about each of his creatures, especially the human beings created “in his image,” and that he insists we do the same.

The Jews gave us the Outside and the Inside—our outlook and our inner life. … We dream Jewish dreams and hope Jewish hopes. Most of our best words, in fact—new, adventure, surprise, unique, individual, person, vocation, time, history, future, freedom progress, spirit, faith, hope, justice—are the gifts of the Jews. [The Gifts of the Jews, pp. 239-241]

Ken Spiro’s Destiny has pages listing Jews who have contributed in the scientific, technological, medical, financial, fashion, and entertainment fields. In terms of social causes, Spiro names the Jews behind the National Social Security Act, the NAACP, the feministic movement, the SPCA, and the American Red Cross. Even the Salvation Army, one of the largest Christian charities in the world, was founded by William Booth, whose mother was Jewish.

At the dawn of the Civil Rights movement in 1963-64, one half of the Freedom Riders who traveled to Mississippi to register black voters were Jews. A milestone event of that era was the disappearance in June, 1964, of three civil rights workers in Mississippi. Seven weeks later their bodies were found, having been murdered by the Ku Klux Klan. Two of three -- Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner -- were Jews from New York.

Spiro also lists Jews who have used their innate drive to corrupt and exploit: the gangsters Meyer Lansky, Bugsy Siegel, and Jacob “Greasy Thumb” Guzik; the insider trading champ Ivan Boesky, and the Ponzi schemer Bernard Madoff. Spiro’s book was published in 2018, before Harvey Weinstein, Jeffrey Epstein and the Sacklers had become household names identified with monstrous vice. As any objective assessment makes clear, however, the number of Jewish villains is dwarfed by the number of Jews who have used their innate drive to improve the world.

Fix You
At the end of this week, Jews will enter the Hebrew month of Elul that kickstarts the 40-day period that ends with Yom Kippur. The singular focus of this time period is to examine one’s deeds, to turn the drive to fix the world inward toward fixing oneself and to evaluate how one’s life falls short of the Jewish ideals of kindness, honesty, integrity, and service of God.

Jews are driven, but the direction you go is up to each individual.

I don’t know if the Sacklers ever attended synagogue on Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur, but clearly they never engaged in the introspection that would have recharged their moral battery nor evaluated their deeds according to Judaism’s standards. Only once, in Kentucky in 2015, was Richard Sackler legally forced to make a deposition about his role in the development and marketing of OxyContin. Tyler Thompson, the lead attorney, described Sackler’s demeanor to journalist Patrick Keefe: “A smirk and a so-what attitude—an absolute lack of remorse.” This is the antithesis of what Judaism requires of Jews.

In the Torah God commands: “I have put before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Choose life” (Deut. 30:19). Jewish drive fuels you to cover extraordinary distances, to persist in seemingly hopeless journeys, and to travel through uncharted territories. Jews are driven, but the direction you go is up to you. And this pre-Yom Kippur season assures you that if you are going in the wrong direction, you have the fuel necessary to make a U-turn and arrive at a different destination.

https://aish.com/the-sacklers-why-some-jews-do-evil/?src=ac
The Sacklers: Why Some Jews Do Evil
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by Sara Yoheved Rigler
August 16, 2023
The Netflix series about America's opioid crisis is a warning to all of us.

The Netflix series “Painkiller,” about how the Sackler family engineered the opioid epidemic, never mentions that they are Jewish. But, as a Jew watching the docudrama, I cringed. Because everyone knows that the Sacklers are Jewish. Just like everyone knows that Bernie Madoff and Jeffrey Epstein were Jewish. Just like everyone knows that Einstein, Jonas Salk, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg were Jewish.

How could one tiny people—just 2% of the American population—produce such shining goodness and also such abysmal evil?

How could one tiny people—just 2% of the American population—produce such shining goodness and also such abysmal evil?

Historian Ken Spiro provides an answer. In his book Destiny, he writes that the mission of the Jewish People is to fix the world, to be “a light unto the nations” as the Bible puts it. The drive to improve the world was programed into the Jew’s spiritual DNA. This tremendous drive is supposed to be channeled by the rules and disciplines of the Torah, which commands honesty and integrity in business, justice and fairness in communal affairs, and kindness and compassion in personal conduct. But when Jews ignore the Torah, when they cease to inculcate its values and wisdom and live by it, their tremendous drive get derailed.

This produces the evil acts perpetuated by the Sacklers.