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The cult of wokeism that has claimed much of Christianity, from left-of-center Quakerism to “swinging with the times” Unitarianism, and to the multiple branches of Anglicanism – including Anglo Catholicism, which used to hold to traditional standards – is now encroaching into Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox territory.In most American Eastern Orthodox churches, most notably Greek (the most liberal Orthodox Church), you’re unlikely to hear sermons on social issues like abortion through a traditional Christian lens. Priests fear alienating their liberal congregations and when crucial social issues are mentioned they are usually only referred to indirectly so as to not cause too much offense in the pews.
The latest woke scandal in Catholicism has to do with an exhibit in a Manhattan church, St. Paul the Apostle. The exhibit featured a “God is Trans: A Queer Spiritual Journey” display near the main altar. St. Paul the Apostle is under the direction of the Paulist Fathers, an order of priests known for radical liturgical innovation and far-left social justice advocacy.
Social justice advocacy in Christian circles, most notably the Catholic Worker movement, used to be relegated to poverty and “authentic” civil rights issues but has since nuanced into a Marxist web of distortions like CRT.
In the 1990s, I attended a “Mass” at Boston’s The Paulist Center, then the “happening” place in that city when it came to “cool Catholicism.” In its desperation to attract young people and the cynically inclined, the Paulist priests at the Center erected multiplex slide show presentations showing images of paintings from MOMA (Museum of Modern Art) during the Consecration.
While the Paulist Fathers may not be as well known as the Jesuits when it comes to radical attacks on the sacred, you can nevertheless count on liturgical mayhem and surprises whenever a Paulist priest is involved.
As for the St. Paul the Apostle exhibit, it was only after media reports about the “God is Trans” exhibit that got the Archdiocese of New York to announce that they were planning an investigation. The Archdiocese claimed that it knew nothing about the exhibit prior to media attention.
The “God is Trans” exhibit is yet further proof that the ultimate goal of the cult of woke is the erosion of the boundaries between the secular and sacred, so that the values of the latter always reflect the former, the net result being the birth of a new religion that stands with the culture every step of the way.
The cult, of course, has also infected Judaism, Christianity’s ancient mother.
In Judaism, the secular strain has been alive and well for decades, snaking its way through the consciousness of American Jews in order to distance them from the synagogues of their ancestors, in effect dismissing these ancestral blessings as un-cool curses to be discarded.
The war between the secular and the sacred in Judaism became very evident to me personally when a local researcher, Beila Rabinowitz, Director of a website called Militant Islam Monitor, alerted me to a talk at the Kaiserman Jewish Community Center in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania.
The event is sponsored by The Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia together with three other groups, Keshet, The Mazzoni Center and Moving Traditions which promote LGBTQ and‘gender neutral’ lifestyles for young people.
The Federation’s mission statement proclaims:
“We are committed to creating a bright future for the Jewish People everywhere…and energize Jewish life and learning.”
Wynnewood, a Philadelphia suburb on the Main Line with a high Jewish population, is home to Congregation Beth Hamedrosh, a thriving Orthodox community. Historically, Wynnewood has been home to Conservative Jews, but the last three decades have seen a tremendous growth towards Orthodoxy.
The Kaiserman JCC was founded in 1971 as an educational and recreational center for Jews and non-Jews.
“Our mission is to create fulfilling connections, enhance lives and foster Jewish peoplehood through inspirational, educational, cultural and recreational programs,” the Kaiserman’s mission statement reads. “Our values are rooted in Tradition.”
The mission statement cites traditions like Sakranut (Curiosity) and Hod (amiability; embracing change.)
What are Jewish values? The word ‘peoplehood’ in the Kaiserman JCC statement is a red flag suggesting “embracing change,” as in being a little less Jewish in the traditional sense.
A Christian comparison might be what would occur if you put the Paulists and the Jesuits together and then created a community center that would end up not espousing traditional Catholic values.
Together with the Jewish Federation, Kaiserman JCC is hosting a June 4 lecture, “Building a New Home in Our Minds: Embracing the Entire Family Through Gender Transition.” The event will be led by Kohenet Dr. Harriette E, Wimms, a clinical psychologist and contract trainer for Keshet, an organization that works for LGTBQIA+ equality in Jewish life.
Wimms describes herself this way:
“A community connector, Dr. Wimms is a proud Black, Disabled, Queer, Fat, Jew by Choice, and is most proud of being mother to her 17-year-old son.”
“Fat, Jew by Choice, Queer.” This is woke psychobabble, the current rhetoric of the Left. Language like this is common enough on random flyers distributed on street corners, yet to strictly Orthodox Jewish eyes, the concept is absurd.
“It’s ridiculous. The Jewish Federation and Kaiserman JCC are supposed to be promoting Jewish values,” Rabinowitz says.
What’s even more absurd is the fact that Wimms calls herself a ‘Kohenet.’
“‘Kohen’ means priest in Hebrew” Rabinowitz informs me.
“Wimms, as a ‘con’vert to Judaism, could never be a ‘Kohenet,’ or priestess. Women cannot be a ‘Kohenet.’ This stuff is being made up. It’s a desecration. By promoting these things, both the Jewish Federation and the Kaiserman JCC are making a mockery of Judaism.”
Then there’s the age-old argument about what makes a Jewish convert. Regarding Wimms’ conversion, Rabinowitz says that she’s not Jewish.
“If you had a Reform ‘con’version or one done by a woman so-called ‘rabbi,’ you are not Jewish according to Halacha (Jewish law),” she says.
Yet while Rabinowitz is fighting wokeism, the (mostly secular) Jewish establishment is celebrating it.
Publications like ‘The Jewish Exponent,’ Philadelphia’s Jewish newspaper of record, will occasionally publish charming features about traditional Jewish communities but overall the newspaper is as woke as The AP Style book.
“The movement to eliminate transgenderism – that is, to eliminate trans people from public life – is intertwined with other hate movements,” an article in ‘The Exponent’ explained in March 2023.
“Some of the same groups advocating for these legislative attacks connect their hatred of trans people with their hatred of Jews. We see that when, as ADL Center Extremism reported, transphobic attacks on medical programs that help transgender youth are accompanied by antisemitic rhetoric and conspiracy theories.”
So when social commentators like Ben Shapiro, a religious Jew, comments on transgenderism, he is being anti-Semitic?
Likewise, in a major Jewish publication in Baltimore (‘JMORE-Baltimore Jewish Living’), Wimms’ home city, urban Jews are told they must get behind Black Lives Matter:
“We are aware that this message may come with some controversy. We acknowledge that the Black Lives Matter movement has had members who have made antisemitic or anti-Israel statements. However, as other major Jewish leaders and organizations have stated, we cannot allow this unrepresentative litmus test be an excuse not to do the right thing, to prevent us from supporting what is clearly today’s civil rights movement.”
Where is Rabinowitz – who calls the ADL the Anti-Defecation League “because they are anally retentive Jews obsessed with anti-Semitism and ignorant of Judaism” and says she is a political conservative and Orthodox Jew – supposed to go in a Jewish world that is increasingly being swallowed up by the cult of woke?
If you need proof of this, just google Wimms’ name and you’ll find numerous Jewish publications praising Wimms as an example of “multiple identities coming together” in a beautiful way.
“Multiple identities coming together in a beautiful way” sounds like clumps of centipedes trapped in a bathtub drain.
Why is identity politics being raised to the level of The Torah?
When I showed the advertisement for Wimms’ lecture to a Jewish, agnostic friend of mine, he laughed and agreed that the description of the talk bordered on the ludicrous.
Meanwhile, Rabinowitz tells me she’s doing all she can to get the Federation’s contributors to threaten to cut off funding if they don’t cancel her talk.
“Instead of adhering to their stated mission of ‘energizing Jewish life’ the Jewish Federation (and JCC) are promoting perversity under the guise of diversity. The Federation has become so ‘woke’ that they should more aptly be called ‘The Jewish Aberration’.”
While free speech advocates might urge the lecture to take place – although under a title like, ‘Purim insanity in June’ – one cannot help but admire Rabinowitz’s fight to safeguard traditional Judaism.
Are you kidding? It was transformed beyond anything recognizably Jewish in the mid-1800’s and today it’s on life support. Only orthodoxy thrives. .
The Federation has long been woke, smug, and politically left – both locally and nationally. Reading its local newsletter submerges you in leftism and the delusion that there is no other view possible. And It’s the only local “Jewish” newsletter.
There is literally nowhere for Jews (who were not raised orthodox) to go to avoid the vicious lies of leftism. It’s not about “ erasing Trans.” It’s about erasing Jews, Judaism (and Israel) and replacing with Climate change, anti-police, only black people matter, trans, blah blah blah.
Many patriotic sincere Jews stay away and are not at all leftwing -but don’t count on MSM to admit that.
If you happen to have an orthodox synagogue nearby that’s a good option.
Spot on! I was raised Reform but will no longer have anything to do with it. It’s all leftist politics all the way down. I’m among the people you describe – a patriotic sincere Jew who stays away and is not at all leftwing.
The heterodox branches of Judaism worship the false woke gods of systemic racism gender fluidity and climAte change
I went to Jewish day school k-5, Jewish summer camp, BBYO, JCC and we belonged to the largest synagogue in San Francisco. That was 40-50 years ago in the 60’s and 70’s. All we were taught in school and heard about from there Rabbis and guest lecturers–from the Bima, no less–were the Marxist shibboleths of the day. Jewish refugees from Germany would come and harangue us and our older siblings to join psychology and sociology departments at Ivy League schools, support “civil rights” and feminism. Today the Jewish birthrate is 0.6 children per woman–not even 1/3 of replacement.
So today its LGBTQwhatever, BLM and from the river to the sea Palestine will be free? If you’re Jewish, you’re either Israeli or Orthodox (of one stream or another) or you’ve no future–either Jewish or even demographic.
Reform and *ALL* Jewish institutions not affiliated with orthodoxy are strictly Marxist recruitment centers with a Jewish face.
Far too many JCCs engage in the worship of the above woke concepts and call it social justice and. Claim that this is Judaism..JCCs will never pack a football stadium in celebration of their cause as opposed to celebrating the completion of seven years of study of the Talmud
Syncretism in religion, in mythology and mysticism, has happened throughout religious history. Since religion, mythology, mysticism, and the irrational are not based on the facts of reality that people can point to for objective confirmation, popular consensus and subjective agreement is all the believers have to go on.
Religious tradition is just going by an ancient, subjective, consensus of the authority of some ancient dude who claimed he had a supernatural revelation and the tribe agreed he did have a mystical revelation, there was no way to prove any of it, just tribal consensus — often by physical force if need be — how else are you going to get the infidels, I mean those who disagree, to believe the so-called revelation.
This new fangled notion of “Judeo-Christianity” is an embryonic, evolving, syncretism. Notice how the crucial difference between Judaism and Christianity, namely the divinity of Christ, is no longer all that serious a mystical contention, and the two opposing mysticisms are merging, or at least at peace with each other.
There was a time when the Jews and the New Jews (the Christians) would have killed each other over the issue of the divinity of Jesus of Nazareth.
THX I pray for you. That Christian itch you scratch every day will never go away until you either bow the knee or go up in flames.
The threat and use of force to make the unbeliever submit to the unbelievable is a necessary part of every faith.
Judaism does not FORCE beliefs on Non-Jews!
Well said. He will never bow. He thinks he is too good for that. He is his very own god. The only alternative is his perpetual misery and then his end.
I really do pray for him. Correct me if I am wrong, but it occurs to me that the indifferent are in a worse place than the passionate haters. While we were yet enemies, Christ died for us. It isn’t the passionate haters who are spewed from His mouth, but the indifferent lukewarm.
Paul was such an enemy, and his redemption became a beautiful triumph of grace. If ever there were a person whose life is so occupied with passionate hatred, it is poor THX.
God can do anything.
So what’s it like to recycle the same pathetic garbage every day? How’s that 20% coming along? Any progress to your New World Objectivist Order?
Yeah, I thought not.
This is not Judaism.
This is neo-Paganism.
I’m no linguist, but the word paganism seems to be derived from:
pa(n)g(a—>e)n(der)ism.
Paganism is Pangenderism.
In Paganism, a small g god is trans; and that man-made god is one of many in, what I’ll call, the id-entity politics
universe.
There is only one God in Judaism. The God of the Torah. The God of the nation of Israel. The Holy. The Blessed.
Blessings affirm daily the connection, the contract, the “brit” in hebrew, between each Jew and God. And there are many blessings, blessings for everything; and saying them makes us aware of our souls and also develops, above all else, intense gratitude to the One who sustains that eternal source of life within our finite bodies.
We say them every day, from the moment we wake up to the moment we go to sleep. Everywhere.
They keep us steady when life is tough; and they increase our joy.
The pagan approach to dysmorphia is savagely advocating treating the symptom and not the cause.
So called hormonal surgical gender affirming care is none other than a form of pagan human sacrifice. It appeases the trans god.
Jewish law forbids mutilation.
Physical mutilation and hormonal manipulation is no cure for dysmorphia.
This is part of the pagan agenda that woke is pushing.
Circumcision is involuntary mutilation. A primitive, superstitious, tribal, ritual. Certainly in a civilized society circumcision on a child would be outlawed for the same reason as FPM, or transgenderism on a child.
If an adult male or female chooses circumcision, FPM, or any other mutilation (ear piercings) for themselves that’s their right but no one has the right to do that to an infant.
That Objectivist cross you bear is getting heavier by the day. You have a lot of gall telling Jews what to do about one there most cherished traditions.
You really have a lot of problems, the worst of which is you compulsion to tell people what to think and believe.
You are not God. You are not a pastor or a Rabbi. You are not even a counselor. You are a very sick little man. See a psychiatrist and have that personality disorder of yours worked on before you finally act out.
The American Heritage Dictionary has little etymologies that you might enjoy.
https://www.ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=pagan
“Why is identity politics being raised to the level of The Torah?”
Because woke is a hostile, deadly, competing religion. Its tenets are basically the old gnosticism / hermeticism recast in modern form.
You are woke when your eyes are opened and you “remember” you are God, knowing good from evil. Whatever you think or desire is good. This is because you are God and your thoughts create reality. Evil is whatever is not good in your created world. This is why the woke become so angry when you assault their reality with facts and truth.
You nailed it. These people who think they know the “secret” are simply seeking a life that allows them to reject Nature’s Law in favor of hedonism and the lust for power. Any challenge to their wisdom and authority is met with the only argument they have, violence. Millions have died for not buying into their fantasy.
That Objectivist cross you bear is getting heavier by the day. You have a lot of gall telling Jews what to do about one their most cherished traditions.
You really have a lot of problems, the worst of which is your compulsion to tell people what to think and believe.
You are not God. You are not a pastor or a Rabbi. You are not even a counselor. You are a very sick little man. See a psychiatrist and have that personality disorder of yours worked on before you finally act out.