Young Men’s Judeo-Christian Association?

Floating across our desk this week from our local YMCA came “We Belong – A newsletter for members & volunteers of the Ann Arbor YMCA” (January 2016). The Mission statement was printed on page one:

To put Judeo-Christian principles into practice through programs that build healthy spirit, mind and body for all.

“We Belong” also reports that the Cleveland, Ohio Director of Marketing and Development is moving to Ann Arbor to become our new President and CEO.
A quick check on the Mission Statement from the 2014 Annual Report of the YMCA of Greater Cleveland finds:

To put Christian principles into practice through programs that build healthy spirit, mind and body for all.

Hmm-mm…

Another check places the origin of the YMCA in London, England. YMCA.net, the website of the US affiliate, reports that in 1844, founder George Williams, a young farmer-turned-department store worker, was troubled by what he saw for the young men who migrated to the city from rural areas to find jobs. “… London offered a bleak landscape of tenement housing and dangerous influences… [Williams] joined 11 friends to organize the first Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA), a refuge of Bible study and prayer for young men seeking escape from the hazards of life on the streets.”

Well, George, welcome to the 21st century and a dominating Jewish influence in the social sphere: the “C” in “YMCA” has all but been removed from the American branch of the organization you founded and now puts “Judeo-Christian” principles ahead of your outdated and silly “Christian” ones. Just as influential Jews in the Ann Arbor community saw to it that the “First Unitarian-Universalist Church of Ann Arbor” became the “First Unitarian-Universalist [u/l] Congregation of Ann Arbor”, it appears to the careful observer that there are forces about set on removing “Christ” from Christmas and “Christian” from the YMJA…

An Unexpected Teaching Moment

Feeling pretty clever about our most recent bumper sticker – “Liberate Palestine, End ‘Israel’”, we were somewhat surprised to find a note critical of that sticker pinned to our windshield from a Harley Davidson motorcycle rider in Deerfield, Ohio. The note read “Liberate America, End Liberals.”

OK, insult aside, what was this person communicating? Probably that he didn’t give a rip about Palestine, Palestinians, or anyone from the Middle East, as those folk weren’t part of his everyday experience. Weren’t Muslim Arabs responsible for the attacks in New York and Washington fourteen years ago? Check out this license plate from an auto salesman’s desk in nearby Brunswick, Ohio:

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~hersko/Photos/Va%20Plate.jpg

Whether or not this biker believed the government report on the attacks of 9/11, he was saying “How about caring about America? Forget the foreigners! They mean nothing to me.”

This teaching moment allowed us to see the impact of Dan McGowan’s “America First, NOT Israel” bumper sticker and successful billboard which bore the same slogan. We believe Americans – JWPF’s target audience – will act when they feel their own interests are at stake. Why are US taxpayers forking over 10 million dollars a day to a country which kills Americans, spies on us and has its own partisans in the highest levels of the US government? Perhaps our biker friend might sport a bumper sticker of his own one day:

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~hersko/Photos/America%20First%20JPG.jpg

Comments?

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