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10/7/2023

More than one [enemy] has risen up against us to
destroy us. Rather, in every generation they rise
against us to annihilate us. —The Passover Haggadah

The world is killing Jews, again.
There are too many for its comfort.
It kills because it simply can—
its evil ever ripe to come forth.

Its evil that has been enabled.
Its savagery that is supported
by guardians who always fail
in their attempts at peace, aborted.

Who always find another fault
with Jews when they are getting murdered—
the story that has long been old.
Looks like that’s what the doctor’s ordered.

From Europe’s graveyards to the knives
of Muhammad’s barbaric zombies—
their hatred’s never died. It thrives—
while they keep driveling of world peace.

As they pretend that they know all
while feeding this abomination,
they’re cooking up their own downfall
and dig the graves for their own nations.

.

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Michael Vanyukov is a Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Psychiatry, and Human Genetics at the University of Pittsburgh. He immigrated to the United States 30 years ago as a refugee from the Soviet Union.

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24 Responses

  1. Roy Eugene Peterson

    May the Lord reap His vengeance on the enemies of Israel. Your message is clear that each generation must remain on watch in order to prevent annihilation and genocide. I am with you and understand the anguish!

    Reply
  2. Martin Rizley

    I cannot understand this demonic spirit of anti-semitism that is calling openly for the annihilation of Jews on college campuses. The apostle Paul yearned with all his being for the spiritual good of those whom he called his “kinsmen according to the flesh”; of course, his desire was that they would embrace Jesus as the promised Messiah, and he lived in the hope that this would come to pass in the future– but he would never have tolerated the least violence or any spirit of hatred toward the Jews.
    Moreover, Jesus Himself was born of Jewish descent.

    For me as a Christian, therefore, to be anti-semitic constitutes a practical denial of the faith; it is to embrace the spirit of anti-Christ that seeks the destruction rather than the civil protection and spiritual liberation and blessing of the Jewish people.

    Reply
    • Michael Vanyukov

      I can’t tell you how amazing it is, Martin, and comforting when non-Jews respond with revulsion to antisemitism. I am sure it is not just because Jesus, Joseph, Mary, John, and all the apostles were Jews, but because it is basic humanity to hate Jew-hate. Losing that humanity brings about chaos and death.

      Reply
  3. Brian A. Yapko

    Michael, this is a very powerful, very timely poem which sets forth the historic context of the world’s oldest hatred. You balance an analytical point of view with despair and bitterness. What else can be done as we try to make sense of what is inherently irrational?

    Books have been written about antisemitism. There have been courses, lectures, documentaries, films. And yet nothing sticks to eradicate it, not changes to Catholic doctrine in Vatican II, not guilt over the holocaust, not the pathos of Anne Frank or the nobility of Oskar Schindler. But it has gone from being a mildly and chilly conservative prejudice to a boiling hot existential threat on the left. The old trope describes leftists as loving only dead Jews and how accurate that seems to be! Only the Jews one can feel sorry for are the ones who are tolerable. When Jews don’t fight back they are hated as weak. When they do fight back they are hated as bullies. They are hated as the powermongers of the Entertainment Industry — and yet what does that inclusiveness achieve? Does any of the mob care that Spielberg is Jewish? Or Rodgers and Hammerstein? That the movies they watch and the music they listen to is largely Jewish? Jews are reviled for financial success. But they go to school, they get their MBAs and PhD.s and write papers on economics and they earn it. They win more Nobel Prizes than any other group and way out of proportion to their numbers. And yet, reviled. They’ll watch Jewish entertainments while using Jewish inventions and medical treatments and all the while complain about those f*$%n Jews. Hypocrisy? Contempt? Jealousy?

    Jews can be decimated almost to extinction and yet come back strong despite their tiny numbers (0.2% of the world population. 15,000,000 souls out of over 7 billion people. The Palestinians can’t seem to get past their victimhood and the woke reckon that anyone who’s successful must be so because they stole it. When your only tool is a hammer everything looks like a nail. But the fact is, if the Jews have succeeded against all odds — historical, political, theological, sociological — it is because they have earned it. They’ve earned their survivial, their many achievements, and their country. And for this the woke and the professional victims hate them most of all.

    Reply
    • Michael Vanyukov

      Dear Brian, thank you for the kinds words. It feels indeed sometimes that nothing changes – but it does, and I think, in both directions, as the world is getting increasingly polarized on the good-evil dimension. On the one hand, it is increasing anomie, instrumentalized by the totalitarians – from communists to militant Muslims, to gain world domination. On the other hand, there i growing number of people of conscience – not of virtue signaling – who understand that hating Jews, inhuman as it by itself is just a prelude to the full civilization decay. That’s why, dark as my thoughts are, I refuse to lose hope.

      Reply
    • David Whippman

      Well said indeed, Brian. And well done Michael for this hard-hitting poem.

      Reply
  4. Morrison Handley-Schachler

    A very powerful message, Michael. I am afraid that anti-semitism has been a persistent evil through the ages.

    Reply
  5. Michael Vanyukov

    Dear Joseph, that was inadvertent. I hope, nothing like that will happen a year later. I hope, by then, Hamas will be history and the enemy will learn its lesson.

    Reply
  6. Michael Vanyukov

    Dear Joseph, that was inadvertent. I hope, nothing like that will happen a year later. I hope, by then, Hamas will be history. I hope, the enemy will learn its lesson.

    Reply
  7. Joseph S. Salemi

    Michael, I too hope that such a thing will never happen. But I do not trust Biden, who is now planning to betray Israel. The “pause” in armaments shipments is only the beginning. The Democrats are already working with those clueless idiots in Israel who are ramping up demonstrations calling for Netanyahu to resign, a conditionless cease-fire, and for the IDF to disengage.

    Biden doesn’t give a rat’s ass for either the Israelis or the Palestinians. All he wants is to win the states of Michigan and Minnesota in the 2024 election, and to assuage the anger of the far-left vermin who are now the activist base of his party. Expect more and more Democrat betrayals as we move towards November.

    Reply
    • Michael Vanyukov

      Joseph, absolutely. Democrats have always been the rotten root. Biden is just a piece of what’s growing on it. I hope, Netanyahu had the same response to him as Begin did.

      Reply
  8. Warren Bonham

    We never have succeeded in eradicating antisemitism when it has reared its ugly head in the past. It’s amazing how quickly this poison can grow and spread once it finds a foothold. It’s sickening that we have to keep re-learning lessons from the past, but it really does show that evil is real and we all need to be ever-vigilant.

    Reply
    • Michael Vanyukov

      Thank you, Warren, for clear understanding. Antisemitism will never die until people are able to see and tell the truth, to call murderers and their supporters what they are, to stop pretending that hundreds of millions can’t be wrong and savages.

      Reply
  9. Margaret Coats

    Michael, in the historical scope you allude to here, I recall the Book of Daniel and its symbols for the various empires under which the ancient world lived. It is interesting to find that one (the Persian) was regarded with favor, because Cyrus the Great was, at least to some degree, a humane conqueror. Isaiah praises him as anointed to allow the return of deported Jews to Jerusalem. But these empires all come to an end, and the present face of Persia is Iran, greatest enemy of Israel. Thus your sad epigraph from the Haggadah, and the overall theme of the thought-provoking poem.

    Reply
    • Michael Vanyukov

      Dear Margaret, imagine how it is when I can give my granddaughters at the Passover seder a very recent example of how the Haggadah they read is true to the letter. Cyrus, of course, a conqueror that he was, conquered the enemy of the Jews, Babylon, and liberated Jews. Thankfully, we are better off than at those times—but it would be great if we could be liberated from the dependence on the decrepit evil emperor who does not qualify for a Cyrus. Thank you for your insight!

      Reply
  10. Joshua C. Frank

    I think so many people hate Jews for the same reason they hate Christians: because they hate the God both groups worship. This is also true of liberal Jews (and liberal “Christians”) who are against Israel—all liberals hate God by definition (James 4:4), and the ones who profess belief in God are no exception.

    In fact, I’ve heard Orthodox Jews say they get much better accommodation (e.g., kosher food and no physical contact of any kind with the opposite sex) from Christians than from liberal Jews.

    Reply
    • Michael Vanyukov

      Joshua, I am sure you’re right, inasmuch as those you call “liberals” have indeed rejected G-d and those who accept G-d. And I am sure believing Christians who respect their own rites and customs will respect others’ with greater likelihood than those who deride religion, regardless of what it is. I gave a talk in a local Ukrainian Catholic church at the invitation of a priest. Not only did he make sure that I as a kippah-wearing Jew felt welcome there, but he ended the meeting by reciting “Hear, O Israel” in Hebrew. The Evangelicals’ support of Israel and Jews is unique and reflects the goodness of this country’s backbone.

      Reply

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