Category: Blaze Media
DEI isn’t dead — and a ‘lost generation’ is still paying the price
While some conservatives believe we’ve won the battle against DEI, BlazeTV host Stu Burguiere thinks that couldn’t be further from the truth. And a new piece in Compact by Jacob Savage called “The Lost Generation” only echoes Burguiere’s sentiment — revealing that what has been done in the name of diversity has stolen livelihoods and ruined professional lives.
“In 2011, the year I moved to Los Angeles, white men were 48% of lower-level TV writers; by 2024, they accounted for just 11.9%. The Atlantic’s editorial staff went from 53% male and 89% white in 2013 to 36% male and 66% white in 2024,” Savage writes.
“White men fell from 39% of tenure-track positions in the humanities at Harvard in 2014 to 18% in 2023. In retrospect, 2014 was the hinge, the year DEI became institutionalized across American life,” he continues.
“I had not really ever honestly thought about it this way, is why it’s such an interesting piece,” Burguiere comments.
“As the Trump administration takes a chainsaw to the diversity, equity, and inclusion apparatus, there’s a tendency to portray DEI as a series of well-meaning but ineffectual HR modules. … This may be how Boomer and Gen X white men experienced DEI. But for white male Millennials, DEI wasn’t a gentle rebalancing — it was a profound shift in how power and prestige were distributed,” Savage writes.
“This isn’t a story about all white men. It’s a story about white male Millennials in professional America, about those who stayed, and who (mostly) stayed quiet. The same identity, a decade apart, meant entirely different professional fates,” he continues.
“If you were 40 in 2014 — born in 1974, beginning your career in the late ’90s — you were already established. If you were 30 in 2014, you hit the wall. Because the mandates to diversify didn’t fall on older white men, who in many cases still wield enormous power: They landed on us,” he adds.
When institutions who heralded diversity lost a person of color, they would only fill that position with another person of color — white men or women need not apply.
“That’s just racism,” Burguiere comments. “OK? If you’re taking someone who is one race and replacing them with a person of the same race, you are making a decision based on skin color, that’s racism. That’s what that is.”
After George Floyd’s death in 2020, several news outlets promised to make a massive change to the color of their workforce, with NPR declaring that “diversity was nothing less than its ‘North Star.’”
“Shouldn’t the truth be your North Star if you’re a journalistic organization?” Burguiere asks. “If you’re NPR and your taxpayers are paying for your entire organization or at least a giant chunk of it, maybe your North Star should be America, right?”
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Haitian pair busted for allegedly using their mini-stores as fronts for $7M SNAP fraud scheme
Two Haitian men have been accused of using their small Boston-based retail stores as a front for a $7 million food stamp fraud scheme.
The United States Attorney’s Office in Massachusetts announced charges against 74-year-old Antonio Bonheur and 21-year-old Saul Alisme. Authorities arrested both men on Wednesday and charged them with one count of food stamp fraud, which carries a sentence of up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
‘The fraud was shocking and glaring.’
Court documents revealed Bonheur is a naturalized U.S. citizen, and Alisme is a Haitian citizen with lawful permanent residence in the U.S.
Bonheur owned Jesula Variety Store, a 150 square-foot retail space, and Alisme owned Saul Mache Mixe Store, a 500 square-foot location. Both establishments were located in Boston’s Mattapan neighborhood.
Despite the stores’ small footprints, they redeemed millions of dollars’ worth of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, ranging from $100,000 to $500,000 per month. According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the redeemed funds outpaced those of a nearby full-service supermarket, which redeems approximately $82,000 per month.
Bonheur was allegedly receiving his own SNAP benefits, which he used to transfer for cash at his store.
RELATED: $500 million in SNAP funds is reportedly spent on fast food because of state program
Jesula Variety Store. Image source: United States Attorney’s Office criminal complaint
Despite 70% of the stores’ SNAP transactions exceeding $95, they stocked “little legitimate food inventory,” the attorney’s office found.
“During undercover operations conducted at both businesses over the course of the investigation, SNAP benefits were allegedly trafficked for cash on four occasions from Jesula Variety Store and on two occasions from Saul Mache Mixe Store,” the attorney’s office wrote. “In each instance, the defendants themselves allegedly worked the cash registers and personally exchanged SNAP benefits for cash. Both stores were also allegedly observed selling liquor in exchange for SNAP benefits.”
Additionally, the stores allegedly sold a donated food product intended for food-insecure children overseas and not authorized for retail sale.
RELATED: Trump admin drops hammer on SNAP scammers after finding 186K dead people collecting benefits
Saul Mache Mixe Store. Image source: United States Attorney’s Office criminal complaint
“To be certain, these were not supermarkets. They were not full-service grocers. It would be a huge stretch to even call them convenience stores,” said U.S. Attorney Leah Foley during a Wednesday press conference. “There is no plausible way SNAP-eligible food could have been purchased from these stores for this long. Yet these two stores are alleged to have illicitly trafficked nearly $7 million in SNAP benefits.”
“The fraud was shocking and glaring,” she added.
Foley explained that the investigation also uncovered alleged “financial manipulations.”
“Because the stores had little legitimate inventory, and almost no lawful income, the defendants relied almost entirely on [U.S. Department of Agriculture]-funded SNAP redemptions,” Foley continued. “To conceal their fraud, they used numerous bank accounts to transfer the SNAP benefits around between the accounts they controlled to create the illusion of legitimate business activity.”
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Putting God back in ‘degraded’ US Chaplain Corps: Hegseth axes pagan codes and New Age guides
Earlier this week, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced that he would be overhauling yet another aspect of the military: the Chaplain Corps.
On Tuesday, Hegseth explained a directive that will effectively overhaul the United States Chaplain Corps, “the spiritual and moral backbone of our nation’s forces” that, for hundreds of years, “ministered” to the “souls” of American servicemen and women, as he explained in the video.
‘In an atmosphere of political correctness and secular humanism, chaplains have been minimized, viewed by many as therapists instead of ministers.’
Hegseth recounted the long history of the Chaplain Corps, which dates back to 1775, when George Washington himself established it. The “weakening” of this important institution has become “a real problem for our nation’s military,” Hegseth said.
“Sadly, as part of the ongoing war on warriors, in recent decades its role has been degraded,” Hegseth said in the video. “In an atmosphere of political correctness and secular humanism, chaplains have been minimized, viewed by many as therapists instead of ministers. Faith and virtue were traded for self-help and self-care.”
Amanda Andrade-Rhoades/For The Washington Post via Getty Images
As evidence of the New Age influence in the military, Hegseth referred to the United States Army’s Spiritual Fitness Guide, which mentions “God” only once and “virtue” not at all, even as 82% of the military identify as “religious.”
Hegseth ordered the elimination of this “unacceptable and unserious” Spiritual Fitness Guide and the simplification of the Faith and Belief Coding System, an “overly complex” classification system of over 200 different beliefs.
The Faith and Belief Code was apparently expanded in March 2017. The expansion went into more detailed distinctions among Protestant denominations, and it included alternate belief systems like “Magick and Spiritualist,” “Wicca,” “Pagan,” “New Age Churches,” “Humanist,” and “Heathen.”
Hegseth promised more changes in the near future, saying that there will be a “top-down cultural shift” in the military that puts “spiritual well-being on the same footing as mental and physical health.”
“We are going to make the Chaplain Corps great again,” he posted on X.
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Caroline Ellison, Sam Bankman-Fried’s partner in FTX crime, sprung early from prison
Caroline Ellison was sentenced to two years in prison last September after facing a possible 110 years.
Ellison was the CEO of Alameda Research, a crypto investment firm that was co-founded by her ex-boyfriend Sam Bankman-Fried, the centerpiece of the FTX scandal that rocked the nation.
‘We do not discuss the conditions of confinement for any individual.’
Bankman-Fried was found to have been improperly funneling money to the hedge fund, and in Dec. 2022, Ellison pleaded guilty to related charges, including conspiracy to commit commodities fraud and conspiracy to commit securities fraud.
Now as reported by Business Insider, Ellison has been moved out of federal prison after serving just 11 months at the Danbury Federal Correctional Institute, a low-security prison in Danbury, Connecticut.
Ellison was reportedly transferred out of the facility on October 16 and into community confinement, a Federal Bureau of Prisons spokesperson told BI.
Spokesperson Randilee Giamusso said that Ellison remains in federal custody by way of either home confinement or through a halfway house.
“For privacy, safety, and security reasons, we do not discuss the conditions of confinement for any individual, including reasons for transfers or release plans, nor do we specify an individual’s specific location while in community confinement,” Giamusso told the outlet.
Photographer: Yuki Iwamura/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Online records purportedly showed Ellison was set to be released in February, nine months earlier than the duration of her sentence.
Despite facing 110 years in prison for seven charges, a New York judge said he gave the 31-year-old a shorter sentence due to her “very, very substantial” cooperation with the federal case against Bankman-Fried and other executives.
“She cooperated, and he denied the whole thing,” Judge Lewis Kaplan said at the time. “I’ve seen a lot of cooperators in 30 years here. I’ve never seen one quite like Ms. Ellison.”
FTX allegedly took $10 billion from customer deposits, while at the same time granting Alameda Research a $65 billion credit line. This eventually resulted in an $8 billion debt taken out of customer deposits.
Ellison testified with other shocking allegations; “CBS Mornings” reported at the time that Alameda allegedly used $100 million of FTX customer deposits to bribe Chinese officials.
The bribes were an alleged attempt to gain access to crypto accounts that were frozen by the Chinese, worth upwards of $1 billion. In their attempts, FTX allegedly tried to regain the money by setting up accounts in the names of Thai prostitutes.
RELATED: Caroline Ellison sentenced to 2 years in prison over massive FTX crypto-scandal
Photographer: Yuki Iwamura/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Ellison also claimed that in order to recoup some money, Bankman-Fried considered selling shares in FTX to investors like Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Ellison reportedly told jurors that Alameda Research would lend money to Bankman-Fried and other FTX executives so they could make political donations. Bankman-Fried donated a reported $70 million to Democrats ahead of the 2022 midterms, making him the second-highest donor behind George Soros.
FTX’s deep pockets allowed for big-name sponsorship deals with people like NFL legend Tom Brady and iconic television writer Larry David and even allowed for naming rights to FTX Arena in Miami.
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Public will soon be able to invest in ‘advanced or reverse-engineered alien technology’
An investment firm is banking on the theory that some companies have access to alien technology.
Firm Tuttle Capital calls itself “the antidote to Wall Street” and boasts a proprietary formula that strengthens its portfolio. Using the acronym HEAT — hedges, edges, asymmetry, themes — Tuttle might be leaning on its alleged proficiency in “big-picture trends” with its new exchange-traded fund, the UFO Disclosure AI Powered ETF.
Funds will also target materials and energy firms that could possibly benefit from ‘new energy sources or metamaterials inspired by alien technology.’
Tuttle’s new ETF — recently filed with the SEC — will invest at least 80% of its net assets in a “basket of companies” it believes have “exposure to advanced or ‘reverse-engineered’ alien technology, spurred by government disclosures about UFOs (unidentified flying objects) and alleged advanced technologies.”
While the companies are yet to be named, they are to include aerospace and defense contractors that “might have R&D programs rumored to work with classified technology, potentially leading to groundbreaking advancements.”
RELATED: Are aliens demons in disguise? This theory will shatter your reality
Photo by Satellite image (c) 2023 Maxar Technologies via Getty Images
At the same time, funds will also target materials and energy firms that could possibly benefit from “new energy sources or metamaterials inspired by alien technology.”
For example, investments are set to be made in companies that work with semiconductors and electronics because they may “incorporate or license advanced alien-inspired components, driving innovation in the tech industry.”
The ETF will attempt to invest in companies that could take down more UFOs in the future as well. This is described in the SEC filing as companies that specialize in detecting unidentified anomalous phenomena, in addition to countering them.
The fund also plans on strategically shorting other companies that may become obsolete due to “alien-level” engineering emerging from their competitors. This includes, but is not limited to, “conventional propulsion firms and old-guard energy providers” that may fall behind due to advanced technologies.
RELATED: Joe Rogan gets the aliens wrong — and the danger right
Photo by: Bernard Friel/Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
“I’m a trader. I look at [UFOs], and I say that they’re using a power source that is light-years beyond anything that we have,” CEO Matthew Tuttle said, according to the Financial Times. “If our government has this technology and it’s released, that will be a game-changer.”
As described in the official documents, the entire “theme” the fund is banking on is regarded as “highly speculative and subject to rumor cycles.”
This comes with the stated risk that “government confirmation or denial of advanced alien tech is uncertain, and rumored breakthroughs might never materialize.”
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Texas crook with 37 prior arrests gets released from jail, cuts off ankle monitor, then steals over $200K in jewelry: Cops
A Texas male with 37 prior arrests was released from jail, cut off his ankle monitor, then went on a crime spree, stealing over $200,000 in jewelry, KSAT-TV reported, citing the San Antonio Police Department and new documents.
Michael Allen Loving, 38, was arrested again Tuesday after being accused in connection with a string of recent robberies and thefts, namely from pawn shops and mall jewelry stores, the station said.
“I would say that it’s brazen that he just walks in, in the middle of the day,” said Camelia Juarez, a SAPD public information officer, according to KSAT. “He will just smash the glass, break it and take off with [the jewelry].”
More from the station:
Arrest affidavits related to Loving’s most recent arrests detail how he used that “smash and grab” technique at JCPenney at North Star Mall in October and at an EZ Pawn shop on West Woodlawn Avenue earlier this month.
The affidavits said that he stole more than $37,000 worth of gold chains from JCPenney and another $45,000-plus in jewelry from the EZ Pawn shop.
In both cases, Loving walked in and specifically asked employees to show him what he referred to as “cubans,” some of the most expensive jewelry in the display cases, the affidavit said.
Loving smashed the glass cases in both businesses, grabbed the jewelry, and ran off, KSAT said, citing the arrest affidavits.
Loving also threatened EZ Pawn shop workers with a gun, police told the station.
“After he threatened those two employees at the EZ Pawn, he went to dozens of other jewelry stores,” Juarez added to KSAT.
Juarez said Loving went on to steal more than $150,000 in jewelry from another business, the station said.
Prior to his crime spree, Loving was arrested in connection with a smash-and-grab theft at an H-E-B on South Zarzamora Street, KSAT said, adding that police said he hit someone with his car as he fled. Officers later found the vehicle abandoned and found Loving — who had removed all of his clothing, the station said.
He was soon released from the Bexar County jail with an ankle monitor — then just days later, he cut off the ankle monitor and went on his crime spree, police told KSAT.
The Bexar County Sheriff’s Office told Blaze News on Wednesday morning that Loving is behind bars.
Juarez said investigators believe Loving has targeted other business owners who have not yet reported crimes, the station said, adding that other potential victims should call SAPD’s Property Crimes Division at 210-207-8326.
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This is what ‘abolish America’ looks like in practice
Federal prosecutors in Los Angeles announced that four members of an anti-capitalist extremist group were arrested on Friday for plotting coordinated bombings in California on New Year’s Eve.
According to the Department of Justice, the suspects planned to detonate explosives concealed in backpacks at various businesses while also targeting ICE agents and vehicles. The attacks were supposed to coincide with midnight celebrations.
Marxists, anarchists, and Islamist movements share a conviction that the United States, like Israel, is a colonial project that must be destroyed.
The plot was disrupted before any lives were lost. The group behind the plot calls itself the Turtle Island Liberation Front. That name matters more than you might think.
When ideology turns operational
For years, the media has told us that radical, violent rhetoric on the left is mostly symbolic. They explained away the angry slogans, destructive language, and calls for “liberation” as performance or hyperbole.
Bombs are not metaphors, however.
Once explosives enter the picture, framing the issue as harmless expression becomes much more difficult. What makes this case different is the ideological ecosystem behind it.
The Turtle Island Liberation Front was not a single-issue group. It was anti-American, anti-capitalist, and explicitly revolutionary. Its members viewed the United States as an illegitimate occupying force rather than a sovereign nation. America, in their view, is not a nation, not a country; it is a structure that must be dismantled at any cost.
What ‘Turtle Island’ really means
“Turtle Island” is not an innocent cultural reference. In modern activist usage, it is shorthand for the claim that the United States has no moral or legal right to exist. It reframes the country as stolen land, permanently occupied by an illegitimate society.
Once people accept that premise, the use of violence against their perceived enemies becomes not only permissible, but virtuous. That framing is not unique to one movement. It appears again and again across radical networks that otherwise disagree on nearly everything.
Marxists, anarchists, and Islamist movements do not share the same vision for the future. They do not even trust one another. But they share a conviction that the United States, like Israel, is a colonial project that must be destroyed. The alignment of radical, hostile ideologies is anything but a coincidence.
The red-green alliance
For decades, analysts have warned about what is often called the red-green alliance: the convergence of far-left revolutionary politics with Islamist movements. The alliance is not based on shared values, but on shared enemies. Capitalism, national sovereignty, Western culture, and constitutional government all fall into that category.
History has shown us how this process works. Revolutionary coalitions form to tear down an existing order, promising liberation and justice. Once power is seized, the alliance fractures, and the most ruthless faction takes control.
Iran’s 1979 revolution followed this exact pattern. Leftist revolutionaries helped topple the shah. Within a few years, tens of thousands of them were imprisoned, executed, or “disappeared” by the Islamist regime they helped install. Those who do not understand history, the saying goes, are doomed to repeat it.
RELATED: The right must choose: Fight the real war, or cosplay revolution online
Aaron Schwartz/Bloomberg via Getty Images
This moment is different
What happened in California was not a foreign conflict bleeding into the United States or a solitary extremist acting on impulse. It was an organized domestic group, steeped in ideological narratives long validated by universities, activist networks, and the media.
The language that once circulated on campuses and social media is now appearing in criminal indictments. “Liberation” has become a justification for explosives. “Resistance” has become a plan with a date and a time. When groups openly call for the destruction of the United States and then prepare bombs to make it happen, the country has entered a new phase. Pretending things have not gotten worse, that we have not crossed a line as a country, is reckless denial.
Every movement like this depends on confusion. Its supporters insist that calls for America’s destruction are symbolic, even as they stockpile weapons. They denounce violence while preparing for it. They cloak criminal intent in the language of justice and morality. That ambiguity is not accidental. It is deliberate.
The California plot should end the debate over whether these red-green alliances exist. They do. The only question left is whether the country will recognize the pattern before more plots advance farther — and succeed.
This is not about one group, one ideology, or one arrest. It is about a growing coalition that has moved past rhetoric and into action. History leaves no doubt where that path leads. The only uncertainty is whether Americans will step in and stop it.
‘This is a must-win’: These 4 Republicans voted against banning trans surgeries on children
The House GOP passed a bill outright banning transgender surgeries for minors, yet some Republicans still objected.
Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s bill Protect Children’s Innocence Act passed in a 216-211 late-night vote on Wednesday. This legislation would make it a felony to perform sex changes or provide puberty blockers and hormone therapy to children.
‘I wish that Republicans were as hell-bent on protecting children as Democrats are when it comes to mutilating them.’
Although the bill was passed largely along party lines, both Democrats and Republicans had some defectors.
On the Republican side, Reps. Mike Lawler of New York, Mike Kennedy of Utah, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, and Gabe Evans of Colorado voted against criminalizing transgender surgeries for children. Only three Democrats voted in favor of Greene’s bill: Reps. Henry Cuellar of Texas, Donald Davis of North Carolina, and Vicente Gonzalez of Texas.
RELATED: ‘Send in the next guy’: Nicki Minaj savages Newsom over his desire to ‘see trans kids’
Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
Greene’s legislation is one of two GOP-led bills on the docket targeting transgender interventions for minors. Terry Schilling, president of the American Principles Project, outlined the key differences between Greene’s Protect Children’s Innocence Act and Texas Republican Rep. Dan Crenshaw’s bill the Do No Harm in Medicaid Act.
“It’s necessary because it bans the procedure outright,” Schilling said of Greene’s bill. “We need this nationwide, because children in California should be protected from these procedures just as much as the kids in Texas or Oklahoma or Alabama or Mississippi or Florida.”
“If we can’t get the full ban done, we should at least make sure the taxpayers aren’t paying for it, right?” Schilling said of Crenshaw’s bill. “If you want a sex-change procedure, you should have to pay for it yourself. These are so expensive. They’re so harmful to the individual. Why are you making us participate in this?”
Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
Both bills are useful because they force lawmakers to go on the record, articulating their degree of support for transgender ideology. Greene’s bill saw near unanimous support from Republicans as well as near unanimous condemnation from Democrats. Crenshaw’s bill puts forward a softer legislative approach, leaving room for moderates on either side to clarify their views on transgender interventions for children.
“I wish that Republicans were as hell-bent on protecting children as Democrats are when it comes to mutilating them,” Schilling told Blaze News. “There’s a difference between the two parties and how fired up they are when it comes to their principles. I think not giving kids sex changes is so commonsense. But these guys will figure out a way to make it controversial and debatable.”
“If Republicans can’t deliver on these things, or at least show that they’re trying to deliver, voters are going to give up on us morally, financially, and politically,” Schilling added. “This is a must-win for Republicans.”
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Growing up in the Hebrew Roots movement — and why I eventually had to leave
Several years before my husband and I met, one of his friends told him, “Modern youth are hungry for truth, and they are looking to the oldest forms of traditional orthodoxy to find it. This leaves them with two main choices: Catholicism or Hebrew Roots.”
My husband hadn’t heard of Messianics before this, or he had heard just enough to scoff at the idea of marrying someone who “pretended to be a Jew.” Nevertheless, his friend’s statement stuck with him. Who were these Protestants LARPing as Jews that they could draw intelligent youth in search of truth away from Catholicism?
We were all encouraged to study our Bibles for ourselves and to test one another. When the family home-churched together, it was always lively.
Relishing the chaos
Some would call us Judaizers.
We are certainly not ordinary Protestants. In fact, my family and most Messianics I grew up with believed that the Catholic Church is the whore of Babylon and the Protestant churches are her daughters. Most Christians were “too Catholic” in our opinion because they went to church on Sunday and celebrated Christmas, two practices instituted by Catholicism.
Despite how odd Messianics might be, they are too disorganized to be classified as a cult. There are somewhere around 200,000-300,000 Hebrew Roots people with no central figure, and there are countless groups within the movement. Some of them are self-identifying Torah followers who may lead isolated lives or fellowship at home with a few like-minded people. Others are members of organized Messianic denominations.
The movement has very few real Jews in it, and for the most part Messianic believers reject modern-day Jewish practices. Instead we endeavor to interpret the Old Testament as literally as possible. This, of course, is nearly an impossible feat and the main cause for disunity in the Hebrew Roots movement.
Perhaps what makes this expression of group interesting is the fact that it is a movement that can’t really be defined as a whole, and yet all the members of it believe that the truth they have is absolute, even though all their like-minded compatriots disagree with them on how to execute this truth. To those raised in the movement, the disorder and chaos are natural and even relished. To those watching from the outside, I can only imagine how bizarre we appear.
Family tradition
My mom chose my name because it was old-fashioned. Most of the rest of the family didn’t like it and tried to give me various nicknames. But my parents named me perfectly.
Keturah — meaning a sacrificial aroma/incense — may be strange-sounding, but it also uniquely fits in all the worlds I’m most interested in. It is both a Jewish and an Amish name and, oddly, has a deep Catholic meaning. It has served me well in the secular world, too, with its unique sound. My name has made it possible for me to blend in among both Christian hippies and woke misfits.
I never considered how odd it was that my great-grandfather basically invented the religion I grew up with (with heavy modifications made by my grandfather). What should have been a red flag — why did nobody figure this out before my great-grandfather? — was instead championed as proof of our righteousness.
My great-grandfather had been a Pentecostal pastor. But he started reading his Bible one day. This led him to preaching on things that his congregation was not ready for, because “the ways of the world were too comfortable.” He left his church, took another wife (his first wife left him with their three children because his beliefs were getting strange), and began a road ministry that my grandfather eventually took over.
I was often told the story of the Rechabites, a family who were saved from being utterly wiped out because they obeyed the words of their great-grandfather. My great-grandfather, too, had left us an inheritance, and if we cherished it, we would be saved from the horrors of the world. I believed this.
RELATED: Deliverance requires memory — and America is forgetting
Photo by Heritage Images/Getty Images
Lively debate
I was neither brainwashed nor raised in a cult. There is nothing more American than leaving the beaten path to make your own way, especially when it comes to religion.
The women in my family are too mouthy and bratty, myself included, for the family to ever have fallen into true patriarchal suppression. We were all encouraged to study our Bibles for ourselves and to test one another. When the family home-churched together, it was always lively.
Even I, at the ages of 10 through 14, would get pulled into the heated dialogue with religious opinions of my own, carefully researched and passionately presented. I was obsessed with writing theological essays during those years.
We were not cosplaying as Jews any more than Amish are LARPing as peasants. We were more interested in what the Bible had to say than the traditions of modern-day Jews. In fact, anything that was “traditional” must be too much like Catholicism. We didn’t want to follow customs, but the law of Yahweh.
Although my great-grandfather and grandfather invented our faith, there was room for fluidity. It has changed much over the years. My great-grandfather kept the Saturday Sabbath and refused welfare for his family although they were poor and had 13 children. They did not eat pork, but ate according to Leviticus 11. We call this eating kosher, but it’s more accurately referred to as eating “clean.”
My grandfather started using the “Sacred Names” to refer to God when my father was young and warned against “calling upon the name of Jesus” because Jesus, he argued, was another form of Zeus. We argued over whether to spell the Messiah’s name Yahshua or Yeshua. We never referred to God as “God” or “the Lord” because those, too, were pagan names. It was always “Father” or “Yahweh.”
Which Sabbath?
When I was 9 years old, my grandfather realized that Saturday was not the true Sabbath. He had discovered an idea called the Lunar Sabbath.
The Sabbath is determined by the phases of the moon. At the end of the month when the moon goes dark, the Sabbath is two or three days long until the new moon appears and resets the Sabbath. And so Sabbath might be on a Tuesday one month and then Wednesday or Thursday the next month. If it were cloudy, it might be difficult to see the moon, and sometimes we would be keeping Sabbath wrong for a week or so until we were able to clearly see what the sky said. It was also difficult for making plans and having social relationships.
When I was 14, I sat down and did a long study on the Sabbath using encyclopedias, various Bibles, and concordances. After three months I presented my research to my family. I explained the pros and cons for the Lunar Sabbath, Saturday Sabbath, and Sunday Sabbath. I had become convinced that Sunday was still not the true Sabbath and that we should stop doing the Lunar Sabbath and revert to Saturday. My parents and siblings could not argue with my evidence. We voted. After five years of living by the moon, we unanimously agreed to revert back to Saturday Sabbath.
This situation taught me several things: We were not a cult, but most of my family was intellectually incapable of interpreting scripture for themselves. It was cool that my family changed after my research. But also why hadn’t they studied this properly at the start? I was 14 years old, and yet I had convinced my parents to make a major theological change. This both inflated my ego and left me feeling insecure and unstable because I was truly alone and could not go to my parents for answers about God.
This is part one of a two-part essay. Part 2 will appear next week. It was adapted and edited for length from an essay that first appeared on the Substack Polite Company.
Large School Systems See Plummeting Foreign-Language Students Thanks To Immigration Enforcement
‘It is the American kids from poorer families, who already face significant obstacles, that are trapped in failing schools that are burdened with the impossible task of addressing the educational needs of large numbers of migrants,’ FAIR’s Ira Mehlman said.
