The NDAA is anti-Semitic!

Originally published Nov. 28, 2022, at Dissident Mama.

The rabid anti-Semitism spewing forth from the 2020 National Defense Appropriations Act (NDAA) and its Naming Commission in its final report aims to tear down the iconic artwork of Jewish sculptor and Civil War veteran Moses Ezekiel, who was not only the first Jewish cadet at the Virginia Military Institute but was also the “the first American-born Jewish artist to receive international acclaim.”

Comprised of six men and only two women, the NDAA’s eight-person Naming Commission stewed in toxic masculinity, misogyny, and sexism, as well as racism since Jews were conspicuously absent from the mostly Southern-born, majority-Republican group. With inequity facts like this, one cannot ignore the white-hooded hate of these vandals.

Moreover, the commission’s one Latino, Lawrence Romo, advocates for Mexican-American veterans but not Jewish veterans like Ezekiel. And the two black folks on the commission — Admiral Michelle Howard and General Thomas P. Bostick — clearly used their systemic privilege to attack a Jewish-American’s reputation, subjugate his personhood, and steal the product of his labor. Simply put, Ezekiel’s human value is being enslaved by the ruling elites and their oppressive institutions.

Additionally, there’s not just a rise in black anti-Semitism; rather, anti-Semitism has “long been widespread in the black community” of which Howard and Bostick are undoubtedly a part. Comedian Dave Chappelle may joke about it, but it’s no laughing matter that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has vowed to back the Naming Commission’s revolutionary pogrom. Although not on the commission himself, Austin’s yet another powerful black man targeting for destruction a Jewish-American’s art and his heritage.

If Kanye West can lose $2 billion in a single day due to what the trustworthy media assures us are “anti-Semitic rants,” certainly the NDAA’s black anti-Semites and the commission’s barefaced fascists should be held to account for their hate. “Silence is no longer an option.” Say his name: Moses Ezekiel!

As H.K. Edgerton, a descendant of slaves, notes: the “so named Arlington National Cemetery [is] where racism, bigotry, and white supremacy abound, with the exception being at the … integrated Confederate soldiers Cenotaph,” Ezekiel’s 32-feet-tall monument immortalizing in bronze white, black, and Jewish Americans.

Ezekiel’s stunning craftsmanship can be seen “hidden in plain sight” in many locales around the country, from the University of Virginia, the West Virginia State Capitol, and an historic Ohio cemetery, to public spaces in Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Arlington. Woefully, the particular sculpture the NDAA wants to raze is the work in Arlington – the one that Ezekiel considered his career’s “crowning achievement.”

Why can’t the ignorant, intolerant, and power-hungry hegemons at the NDAA (which really stands for Nazis Destroying Art & Architecture) cease with their Jew-denying ways? Why spit on the memory of this patriotic Jewish-American and deny access to Jewish progeny who are proud of Ezekiel’s legacy and their Hebraic war-veteran ancestors? Well, the anti-Semitism apple doesn’t fall far from the tyrannical tree.

While the NDAA is supposed to “establish defense priorities … and provide guidance on how funding should be used,” it’s really just a bait-and-switch: the oligarchs pretending to uphold freedom and glorious democracy but instead using their unchecked authority to culturally genocide an unprotected minority. Sickening.

Donald Trump, the most pro-Jewish and pro-Israel president in history who signed an executive order to combat “anti-Semitic movements,” vetoed the NDAA saying that “the Act … includes provisions that fail to respect our veterans and our military’s history.” Undeniably, the man who moved the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, could see just how anti-Semitic the bill was from the get-go.

Isn’t it ironic that the man who created with his own hands the “Religious Liberty” sculpture is having his own artistic hands tied (and his mouth bound and gagged) by the anti-Hebrew iconoclasts? What’s next? Razing the monument memorializing the thousands of Jewish soldiers who served in wars and sometimes even in all-Jewish companies during Ezekiel’s time? Or perhaps the NDAA will cancel all Southern Stars of David and maybe even reinter the valorous Hebraic dead?

Some of Ezekiel’s own descendants have even conformed to the intense institutional pressure and are calling for the removal of their relative’s Arlington sculpture. Unfortunately, the culprit here is the “demented tradition of self-loathing” Jews who are often “more vicious” in “demonizing and proscribing Judaism.”

What can one expect when systemic dominance of the NDAA is pitted against your people group? “When society marginalizes Jews, who then internalize the sense of marginalization … Jewish self-hatred occurs.” It’s a sickness from which some in Ezekiel’s family line are obviously suffering.

In my estimation, this psychological and social malady is why David Rubenstein, co-founder of Carlyle Group and a Jew, donated $13.5 million to “rehabilitate” Arlington House and is hellbent on renaming it, removing the estate’s rightful Lee name. Rubenstein’s a clever businessman with his wallet wide open to the arts and historical “preservation,” so he must know that the Hebraic-honoring “Gen. Robert E. Lee consistently permitted Jewish soldiers to observe their holy days.”

“In a correspondence from 1864 Lee made the statement, ‘I will gladly do all in my power to facilitate the observance of the duties of their religion by the Israelites in the army, and will allow them every indulgence consistent with safety and discipline.’”

“When a captain under Lee’s command disapproved of a Jewish soldier leaving to go to a synagogue in Richmond, Lee reversed the command and instructed the captain to ‘always respect the religious views and feelings of others.’” No wonder why auto-anti-Semites loathe Lee so much.

Likewise, Rubenstein must know that Lee was a mentor for the young Ezekiel and encouraged him to pursue art. Such support helped inspire Lee’s compatriot in arms to become “the only Jew born in America up to that time who had dedicated himself to sculpture.”

Rubenstein must know that the Jewish people claim a right of return in Israel as did the Lee family to their native soil at Arlington House, where white supremacists invaded, plundered, and eventually stole from the Lees through tax shenanigans. It’s been occupied territory since May 1861, not only the estate but also the “hallowed ground” of Arlington National Cemetery. It’s the ultimate in cultural appropriation.

“In accordance with his wishes, on March 31, 1921, [Ezekiel] was buried among his Confederate comrades in Arlington National Cemetery at the base of his towering monument.” I wouldn’t be surprised if the NDAA anti-Semites wanted to exhume his body the same way they have done to some of his other fellow war veterans, even though “Jewish Law sharply condemns the excavation and removal of corpses from their gravesites,” says Jewish writer Jack Schewel.

Along with Schewel, a few brave Jews have written a letter pushing back against the Naming Commission’s last-ditch request, not only in protest of the abomination of hate, but also the group’s inconsistency with Hebrew custom and tradition. “Judaism teaches us that loved ones never die if there is someone left to remember them,” Schewel explains.

“This monument is a testament to the memory of thousands who died and brings comfort and solace to their descendants,” the letter adds. It may be a cenotaph, which Merriam-Webster defines as “a tomb or a monument erected in honor of a person or group of persons whose remains are elsewhere,” yet it’s sacred nonetheless.

Moreover, “peace and reconciliation” are central values are in Judaism, teaches Rabbi Dr. Ron Kronish. Just another anti-Semitic slight of the Naming Commission and its self-loathing foot soldiers, and more evidence as to why the NDAA has targeted Ezekiel and Lee, both of whom promoted national healing.

Please sign this petition defending Ezekiel’s stunning monument at Arlington. Let your voice be heard by calling your representatives in Washington and speaking up against this dreadful discrimination in both the institutional power structures and the public square. We must demand an end to this holocaust of history and heritage happening at the hands of the regime. War-veteran lives matter! Never forget.