Columbus Discovered America

It is possible that Africans discovered South America before Columbus. It is certain the Viking discovered North America before Columbus. But only Columbus truly discovered the New World.

None of the Vikings, none of the Africans, not a single person prior to Columbus, successfully incorporated the knowledge of the Americas into the culture from which they came.

If you stumble over a chair in the dark, you haven't discovered a chair. You just figured out a new way to stub your toe.

Columbus stumbled over the chair in the dark, figured out that it was a chair, communicated to the rest of the world that chairs existed, and then incorporated into his own culture a new culture that used chairs as a matter of course. Columbus discovered the New World. Everyone else just stubbed their toes in the dark.

Best Evidence for Historical Jesus

 This is a very good answer

Matthew Hogan

Author has 333 answers and 1.1M answer viewsUpdated Aug 5

Probably the best single-piece of evidence is the work of the Roman Emperor Julian, aka Julian the Apostate (b. 330 C.E. -- d. 363 C.E.) and the logical inferences one can derive from his argumentation.

Flavius Claudius Iulianus (aka “Julian the Apostate”), reigned 361–363 C.E.[A.D.]

While there is a lot of other very very good multiple sets of evidence and sources and logical deductions for the life of a religious figure Jesus of Nazareth circa 30 C.E., Julian may have put forth the best single go-to item of evidence for there having been an actual historic Jesus of Nazareth.

Here’s why.

Julian as Emperor rejected the newly dominant religion of Christianity and fiercely sought to discredit and to reverse its influence. So he wrote and/or commissioned in his own name an entire treatise rather savagely disparaging Christianity and its founder Jesus, with intent to discredit the religion, using the extant historic record from the first century to his time.

But in doing so he never disputed Jesus’ historical existence and even somewhat separately offered to prove it.

Julian wrote a book (Contra Galileos) which is not challenged as to its authenticity though it only survives in quotings and copies of major portions of it by Christian adversaries, as well as smaller fragments.

In the book, he ridicules Christian believers and the alleged miracles, divine status, and wisdom of Jesus that are claimed for him by Christians. But there is no assertion or even hint made by Julian that Jesus the individual never was.

Why is that important & powerful evidence?

SLIGHT EDIT: Because he was a lot closer in time to the time of Jesus than today, living before the barbarian ravagings of Rome and the final collapse of the western empire, and he had access to and power over all the still extant rumors, hard record-keeping, and broad literature of the Roman Empire in which Jesus was said to have lived and die under, including all the earlier texts often cited separately and together by all sides of the debate on Jesus’ existence today. And he had every motive to use any evidence or even credible speculation he could find that was or had been going around in the few centuries during and after Jesus’ alleged lifetime, and which would throw doubt on the real existence of a Jesus of Nazareth.

All he had to do, if non-existence of the man was indeed the case, was to assert the absence of likely official records or accounts or reports about Jesus. Or just cite the presence of significant contemporary arguments, “buzz’ and primary reports questioning Jesus’s existence, or even pass along viable credible rumors. Such steps would fire a powerful solid direct arrow of doubt at the new religion whose discrediting was a major, even central, issue for him.

And he had the resources to do that effort. He was, after all, the Emperor of a still-unified Roman Empire which had not yet seen the heavy destructions of later centuries. He had access to imperial documentation, archives, great ancient libraries and so forth.

But when addressing and challenging his own Christian contemporaries, he ridicules Jesus as a charlatan and as someone of little greatness or worth or note, but he doesn’t even remotely question Jesus’ factual existence.

At one point, this ancient Roman anti-Christian researcher-writer even offers to independently prove the opposite: that Jesus was real:

Even Jesus, who was proclaimed among you, was one of Caesar's subjects. And if you do not believe me I will prove it a little later, or rather let me simply assert it now. However, you admit that with his father and mother he registered his name in the governorship of Cyrenius.

….

Further, he ridicules Jesus and Paul for being insignificant, and rather dishonest, preachers, and Julian then explicitly employs and endorses the process of critically reviewing and assessing contemporary documentary evidence specifically in order to ascertain the status and impact of Jesus and early followers. That indicates he was conscious of, and favorable towards, using methods of contemporary document research in disputes about Jesus. And that is precisely what modern skeptics argue as the vital methodology to use for analysis today —though with less documentation available to today’s disputants.

But when doing this method, Julian doesn’t at all conclude or contend from it that Jesus or Paul was fictional: he merely says the two were just fools from the backwater misleading other ignorant lower-class fools and of course— as he expresses further down below in the spirit of 4th century patriarchy — those gullible womenfolk.

Yet Jesus, who won over the least worthy of you, has been known by name for but little more than three hundred years: and during his lifetime he accomplished nothing worth hearing of, unless anyone thinks that to heal crooked and blind men and to exorcise those who were possessed by evil demons in the villages of Bethsaida and Bethany can be classed as a mighty achievement.

Julian thus argues that Jesus and Paul were obscure and of very low impact, and not likely to have created much of a buzz in their day. But he does not contend even slightly that they were imaginary.

As for purity of life you do not know whether he so much as mentioned it; but you [Christians of Julian’s era] emulate the rages and the bitterness of the Jews [towards idols], overturning temples and altars, in the same fashion as yourselves. But these are rather your own doings; for nowhere did either Jesus or Paul hand down to you such commands.

Julian thus argues here that they (Jesus and Paul) were actual independent people distinct even from their own movement and who may have spoken differently from their followers.

In short, they were real people. The movement didn’t invent them or their original ideas. They had agency, as it is termed today.

Julian: The reason for this is that they never even hoped that you would one day attain to such power as you have; for they were content if they could delude maidservants and slaves, and through them the women, and men like Cornelius and Sergius. But if you can show me that one of these men is mentioned by the well-known writers of that time, – these events happened in the reign of Tiberius or Claudius, – then you may consider that I speak falsely about all matters.

Notice here that to discredit Jesus and Paul, he is again not questioning they existed (“these events happened” not “were alleged to have happened”}. And it clearly would have been to his advantage to make such an argument if it had any credible legs to stand on from the Roman documentation available to an emperor or even just by general logic.)

Instead, in terms of Jesus (and Paul’s) presence in history, Julian is just arguing that they were no big deal and wouldn’t rate, didn’t rate, and shouldn’t have rated any contemporary first-century chatter.

The fact that he confidently challenges his rival Christians regarding the literature of Jesus’ time suggests a solid broad familiarity with the documentation about Jesus from Jesus’ day. And Julian had far more primary literature and records available to him then than we do now. Someone would not make such a dare unless he’d done heavy homework in the documentation and literature of Jesus’ time.

Julian’s work is therefore a hostile, informed, ancient authority supporting the argument that a mere lack of very much immediate contemporary biographical evidence - a big obsessional point made by modern “skeptics”/”mythicists” - is not likely to be proof of non-existence.

Rather it is just strong proof or evidence of the relative obscurity of the historic Jesus (and Paul) in their original time.

Now, there are elsewhere in the fuller record of history, outside and before Julian, heaps and piles of corroborating primary and secondary evidence over time and/or supportive logic about the existence of a historical figure named Jesus (see some other Quora answers on this, for starters).

But perhaps the “best evidence”, meaning evidence found conveniently in one place, may simply be that the guy who had:

a) full access to the best independent primary record evidence of and argumentation about Jesus, and

b) full access to the same ancient sources that are kicked around in modern day debate (with far more material and information still extant in his day), and

c) every motivation to use against Christianity and its founder(s) whatever facts and arguments he could find in all that,

nevertheless he — the very capable and very anti-Christian Emperor Julian — never once, as far as we can tell, brought up the question of whether the historical figure Jesus of Nazareth existed at all.

Further, he even somewhat offers at one point to independently prove that Jesus DID exist historically, and in a specific personal legal status as a subject of Caesar.

Julian’s work is one-stop shopping for the entire historical Jesus evidence debate. His commentary and analysis is from someone who had access to far far more primary and contemporary reams of data and stacks of argumentation than we have today.

And who had the motive to use any and all credible negative arguments he could find there about Jesus of Nazareth.

If anyone would have had knowledge of any coherent total or partial usable or valid evidence, or even valid speculation, of Jesus of Nazareth’s historical non-existence in the ancient Roman world, and would have the overriding interest and broad resources to broadcast that fact loud and clear in a published work, it would have been Emperor Julian.

But he never went there.

When Jews Helped Kill Christians

The status of Jews in the Roman Empire:

The Theodosian Code shows us that those immunities which had been granted to the Jews by the pagan  emperors, and which had made them a privileged class dwelling within the Roman world, were continued by the Christian emperors.5 At the opening of the fourth century Jews were classed as Roman citizens and enjoyed all the advantages of civic status. They were in every economic stratum of the empire; many were rich, many were poor. Some were merchants, others artisans, and still others farmers. They had their own cult organizations called synagogues. If any Jew did not belong to such an organization he had to pay the Roman government poll tax and sacrifice to the Roman gods. Only a Jew within the synagogal organizations could escape these munera (civic duties).... The main Jewish privilege was that Jews could not be forced to perform any task which violated their religious convictions. This meant that they were exempt from the crushing burden of the decurionate, that responsibility for the collection of imperial taxes which was gradually impoverishing the middle class of the Roman world. And Jews were neither compelled to celebrate state worship nor forced to attend pagan temples

The Jewish Chronicle notes this about the Muslim invasion of Spain:

"Within a century of the death of Mohammad, in 632, Muslim armies had conquered almost the whole of the world where Jews lived, from Spain eastward across North Africa and the Middle East as far as the eastern frontier of Iran and beyond. Almost all the Jews in the world were now ruled by Islam. This new situation transformed Jewish existence. Their fortunes changed in legal, demographic, social, religious, political, geographical, economic, linguistic and cultural terms - all for the better."

The Times of Israel notes this about the Holodomor, Stalin's starvation of the Ukraine:

In 2009, Ukraine’s security service released a document naming those who it alleged to have been responsible for the Holodomor. Most of the names on the list were Jewish.

Christians in Israel claim attacks by Jews go unpunished:

 Christians in the Holy Land say they’re under attack as Israeli-Palestinian violence soars

Church officials and Christian leaders in Israel blame a minority of Jewish extremists for the attacks. They say Israel’s far-right government has fostered a culture of impunity.

Why Zionism Requires Dead Jews

 In the Muslim-Israeli conflict, both sides want a war of annihilation, but not for the reason you think.

Israel was created based on the existence of a mountain of Jewish corpses. The rational for the secular state of Israel has ALWAYS been that it will provide sanctuary for the world's Jews, providing a place of protection against the ceaseless persecution Jews face. From Israel's point of view, the worst possible thing the world could do is to STOP persecuting Jews. If no one paid any attention to Jews, if there was no persecution, Israel would not need to exist. It would have no purpose. Jews could live anywhere, they wouldn't have to live in Israel. And let's face it, most people don't really want to live in a desert. It's not like the Middle East has a lot of creature comforts. So, Israel is necessarily the Al Sharpton of nations. It REQUIRES persecution in order to justify its position on the political stage. If there is no persecution, then Tawana Brawley-like persecution must be manufactured. If Hamas and Hezbollah did not exist, Israel's government would have to create it, or Israel's politicians would not get paid. Other nations, like the US, are fine with this set-up, because every money transfer is an opportunity for graft. As long as someone is getting "aid" from another country, that country's politicians get paid. War in the Middle East is a win-win for everyone involved. The Tree of Israel must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of dead Jews. In his heart, every Zionist knows this is true. And this isn't the first time this has happened. As Solzhenitzyn noted, this is a constant in Jewish history:

Solzhenitsyn, awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1970, spent much of his life in Soviet prison camps, enduring persecution when he wrote about his experiences. He is currently in frail health, but in an interview given last month he said that Russia must come to terms with the Stalinist and revolutionary genocides - and that its Jewish population should be as offended at their own role in the purges as they are at the Soviet power that also persecuted them. "My book was directed to empathise with the thoughts, feelings and the psychology of the Jews - their spiritual component," he said. "I have never made general conclusions about a people. I will always differentiate between layers of Jews. One layer rushed headfirst to the revolution. Another, to the contrary, was trying to stand back. The Jewish subject for a long time was considered prohibited. Zhabotinsky [a Jewish writer] once said that the best service our Russian friends give to us is never to speak aloud about us."

Solzhenitsyn also noted:

“We cannot state that all Jews are Bolsheviks. But – without Jews there would never have been Bolshevism. For a Jew nothing is more insulting than the truth. The blood-maddened Jewish terrorists had murdered 66,000,000 in Russia from 1918 – 1957.” 

This is why Netanyahu deliberately funded Hamas

The accusations aimed at Netanyahu go beyond merely failing to foresee or prevent the Hamas attack of October 7, however. Many accuse him of deliberately empowering the group for decades as part of a strategy to sabotage a two-state solution based on the principle of land for peace. "There's been a lot of criticism of Netanyahu in Israel for instating a policy for many years of strengthening Hamas and keeping Gaza on the brink while weakening the Palestinian Authority," said Mairav Zonszein of the International Crisis Group. "And we've seen that happening very clearly on the ground."

This is why Israel's response to the Hamas attack was non-existent for several hours:

According to US intelligence, Hamas was surprised by the slowness of the Israeli security forces's response to the offensive by its armed commandos.

Just as the demand for racists far exceeds the supply, the demand for anti-Semites is insatiable. It may be worthwhile to note that for years, Netanyahu actually funded Hamas. And after all of that funding, isn't it amazing that Egyptian, US and Israeli intelligence all warned the Netanyahu government about an impending Hamas attack, yet not only was nothing done, the Israeli military didn't respond for several hours? Israel needs persecution, conflict, and most of all, dead Jews. It cannot long survive without them.

Every politician in the world wants his cut of the graft that this principle creates. There's a reason Kamala Harris' daughter raises money for Hamas while Kamala herself campaigns to send US taxpayer money to Israel.

That's why Trump's "no war" policies were literally considered criminal in international circles. By not encouraging war, by not participating in military action, Trump stole income from thousands of politicians world-wide and from the corporations that profit from conflict. Trump MUST go to jail for this unconscionable crime against humanity, humanity being defined as "those who profit from international money transfers."

Israel needs dead Jews. The world's politicians and corporations need war.

Who can deny them what they need?

Palestine or Israel?

 We know from Herodotus the term "Palestine" first appeared in the 5th century BC in his history. 

In the early 2nd century AD, the term "Syria Palaestina" (literally, "Palestinian Syria") was given to the Roman province of Judaea around the time the Romans crushed the Bar Kokhba revolt in 135 AD. By 390 AD, during the Byzantine period, the imperial province of Syria Palaestina was then reorganized into Palaestina Prima, Palaestina Secunda and Palaestina Salutaris. The Muslims continued to use those names for the regions through the Ottoman Empire and its demise. 

The idea that this area should be called "Israel" is a post-WW II conceit. It has not been called that for over 2000 years, as this graphic from a 1947 issue of National Geographic shows:

So, the idea that the area should be called "Israel" instead of "Palestine" is very much like the Protestant idea that Protestant theology can be traced all the way back to Christ's time - it's absurd on its face, but that doesn't keep people from trying to defend it and promote it.

As for Judaism somehow being unique, there is no evidence of that. Hinduism is older than Judaism and can lay claim to being BETTER and more obviously chosen by God precisely because they prospered.  Zoroastrianism is older than Judaism and much more deeply persecuted than the Jews ever were, so if persecution is the standard, then Zoroastrianism wins. Parsis can also be viewed as a distinct tribe.

Judaism isn't unique, it's prosaic. In fact, it isn't even properly Judaism anymore. Temple sacrifice was wiped out two millennia ago. The rabbi-synagogue system is essentially a new religion pasted into history under the old name, but with no real connection to any of the original faith system. There is no way to look at Reform, Conservative, Orthodox or even Haredi or Karaite and claim that they are practicing a theology anything like Isaac's sons practiced.

As for "tribe", there is literally no way to differentiate a Jew from a non-Jew. There are no distinct genetic markers, no real indications of a tribe, no physical test that differentiates a non-Jew from a Jew. One could make the tribal claim for Hindus as easily as one can for Jews. In terms of belief, the claims for what constitutes Judaism are so wide and varied that there is essentially no common ground left. It's all a chimera, a fantasy.

It's like saying a visit to the Germany pavilion at Epcot Center, Disneyland is identical to being a German living in Munich. At this point, Judaism is nothing but absurd play-acting. Judaism is just a bunch of modern leftists LARPing as ancient monotheists, and doing a piss-poor job of it.

Update:
We should also keep in mind that our idea of what constitutes Israel is not the same as the Jewish idea of what constitutes Israel. 

Similarly, we should remember that just as the Koran requires the Muslims to commit genocide against the Jews, the Torah requires the Jews to commit genocide as well:

"...listen to this lecture by Rabbi Eliyahu Kin, delivered in 2009, on the question: “Why must Jews destroy Amalek?” Let me summarize it for you. The Amalekites deserved their fate because they opposed the will of God. The will of God is good, and opposing the will of God is evil. So exterminating Amalek is good, while saving just one Amalekite, as Saul did, is evil. In fact, since God is good, exterminating Amalek is the expression of his goodness. And since “the best way to love what Hashem (God) loves is to hate what Hashem hates,” hating Amalek is loving God. The reason why the Amalekites hate the Jews is not because the Jews want to exterminate them. “What bothers Amalek is that the Jew believes in mussar, morality, ethics, being good, being nice.” The Amalekites are also evil because they oppose the Torah — in which God orders them to be exterminated. Ultimately, Rabbi Kin summarizes, “we are cruel to Amalek because we need to be. Because that is exactly what they would do to us if they had the chance.” Why? Because Amalek “is a concentration of hatred.” And Jews must hate hatred — except the hatred of God for Amalek, which they must love as an expression of God’s love. "

How Zionists Collaborated With Nazis

 Even the Jews know it is true.

Haaretz reports:

"The Zionist Activists Who Collaborated With Nazis, and Were Executed by Jewish Partisans

The Betar movement has ignored a melancholy chapter of its history that occurred in the Vilna ghetto during the Holocaust: the execution by Jews of other Jews who collaborated with the Nazis"

A JStor paper

The Secret Contacts: Zionism and Nazi Germany, 1933-1941 (Klaus Polkehn)

Middle East Monitor

Israel’s state archive exposes Zionist efforts to enlist Nazis against Britain (June 22, 2023)

Efforts by Zionist militias to recruit Nazi Germany in the fight against the British Mandate authorities in Palestine have been revealed in newly-released transcripts in the Israel State Archive. The documents, which were released to the public last month, include information on what Haaretz has called the “dark chapter” of Zionist militias’ ties with Nazi Germany. Reporting on the revelations, the Israeli newspaper uncovered shocking details which not only debunk the Zionist propaganda that Palestinians had cooperated with Nazi Germany, but also confirm that some of the founders of Israel believed that it was essential for Zionists to do so.

England's Labour Party Leader

Livingstone said: “I simply said, back in 1933 Hitler’s government signed a deal with the Zionist movement, which would mean that Germany’s Jewish community were moved to what is now Israel.

Livingstone is referring to the Haavarah Agreement. Everything Livingstone claims is verifiable fact. Every bit of it happened. Read Hannah Arendt. 

“When the Zionist movement asked the Nazi Government, would they stop the rabbis doing their sermons in Yiddish and make them do it in Hebrew, he [Hitler] agreed to that. He also passed a law that said only the Zionist flag and the Swastika were the only flags that could be flown in Germany. The SS set up training camps so that German Jews who were going to go there could be trained to cope with a very different sort of country when they got there,” Livingstone claimed.

Testimony of Holocaust Survivors

Here we publish  extracts from Holocaust survivors who oppose historical and recent Israeli policies, in some cases connecting them with those of the Nazis. In one case, the author – again a Holocaust survivor (Rudolf Vrba, pictured above) – compares key policies of the wartime Zionist movement to those of the Nazis.

The Times of Israel

On quest to clear Kasztner, historian ‘shocked’ to prove Nazi collaboration. By JENNI FRAZER (15 November 2016)

Paul Bogdanor has set out the case against the Hungarian Jew who negotiated with Eichmann, an affair that sparked a deadly scandal in Israel, though that wasn’t his original plan. But for British Jewish historian Paul Bogdanor, his ambition to find material defending the controversial wartime Zionist leader, Rudolf Kasztner, was cruelly thwarted.

Bogdanor was “extremely shocked” to find that everything pointed towards Kasztner’s having been “a collaborator” with the Nazis, and a “betrayer of the Zionist movement and the Jewish people.”

Zionism and anti-Semitism in Nazi Germany (Cambridge University Press, 2008)

In his latest book, Francis R. Nicosia returns to and explores in greater detail one of the major topics of his important earlier book, The Third Reich and the Palestine Question (1985): the complex and sometimes symbiotic relationship between German Zionists and the National Socialists...Both Zionists and antisemites rejected the liberal Enlightenment ideal of full Jewish assimilation in their host societies as free and equal citizens, but they did so for very different reasons. However, their differing motives and mutual hostility to each other did not prevent Nazis and Zionists from temporarily collaborating to achieve their respective ends.

Most of Nicosia's thoroughly researched book is devoted to examining how German Zionists tried to gain Nazi cooperation in the Zionist project and how the Nazis tried to use the Zionist movement to achieve their primary aim of creating a judenrein German Reich

...On the basis of copious research in more than two dozen German, Israeli, British, and North American archives, Nicosia confirms the current historical consensus that the Nazis had no plan for systematic genocide before 1941... a scrupulous work of history, not politics, and Nicosia makes no references to the present, except to point out the irony that while anti-Zionism or criticism of the state of Israel in Europe or the United States today is often equated with antisemitism (or viewed as motivated by antisemitism), before 1933 antisemites were more likely to support Zionist aims than to oppose them. 

 Zionism in the Age of the Dictators, Lenni Brenner (Westport, CT: Lawrence Hill, 1983)

...It takes only a small step to move from this kind of thinking to Haganah agent Feivel Polkes’ spying in 1937 for Adolf Eichmann, in the hope of getting the Nazis to further “the realisation of Zionism.”

For the major Zionist organization, the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine overwhelmed all other considerations, including the rescue of Europe’s Jews. After Kristallnacht (November 1938), when the British government proposed that thousands of Jewish children be brought to Great Britain from the continent, David Ben- Gurion told a meeting of Labor Zionists:

If I knew that it would be possible to save all the children in Germany by bringing them over to England, and only half of them by transporting them to Eretz Yisrael, then I would opt for the second alternative, (p. 149)

In 1943, while the Jews of Europe were being slaughtered, the US Congress finally got around to proposing a rescue commission. Rabbi Stephen Wise, one of American Zionism’s most important spokesmen, “came to Washington to testify against the rescue bill because it did not mention Palestine.” (p. 242) 

Brenner’s final chapter is about the Stern Gang, a terrorist group that splintered from Begin’s Irgun. In 1941, while still considering themselves part of the Irgun, the Sternists sent a proposal of alliance to the Nazis. “The establishment of the historical Jewish state on a national and totalitarian basis, and bound by a treaty with the German Reich,” the Stern document read, “offers to actively take part in the war on Germany’s side.” It adds that “the NMO [Irgun] is closely related to the totalitarian movements of Europe in its ideology and structure.” (pp. 267-268)

... Yitzhak Shamir, one of the Stern Gang’s leaders, recently served as Israel’s prime minister. Begin honored Stern by putting his portrait on a postage stamp.

Germany’s Never-Ending Guilt Trip

Nazi Germany and the Jewish Agency for Palestine, the future government of Israel and the official representative of the Zionist Organization (ZO), entered a contractual transactional relationship from 1933 to 1939. In 1952 the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) and the State of Israel, on behalf of all Jews, signed an agreement that paved the way for Germany’s unconditional support for Israel. No suggestion is being made here that Nazi Germany and the FRG are the same; the FRG assumed responsibilities for the crimes of the Holocaust.

However, both contractual transactional relationships between both countries from 1933 to the present have initiated policies and programs that contributed significantly to the deterioration of German Jewish living conditions in Germany, the transfer of thousands of German Jewish citizens and their assets out of Germany to colonize Palestine, the establishment of Israel in historic Palestine, the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people, the allocation of a significant portion of German reparation money for the benefit of Israel instead of the victims of the Holocaust, the strengthening of the Israeli economy and industrial base, and providing Israel with German military technology and equipment to wage wars in the region.

In this article, I will examine and analyze the special, often secret, relationship between Germany and the Zionist mechanization to colonize Palestine, the establishment of Israel in 1948, and the arming of the state with modern weapon platforms that can carry and deliver nuclear weapons. This secret relationship is in clear violation of German law, made possible by creating a universal guilt feeling among Germans for the crime of the Holocaust, and associated with a deliberate lack of public debate and accountability.

If Jews were willing to support FDR, even though they KNEW he was allowing Jews to be murdered, why would their attitude towards the Nazis have been any different?

This deliberate inattention was a stunning confirmation of the low value that the democracies placed on Jewish lives in Nazi-occupied Europe. Both newspapers, though owned by Jews, took their cues from the Roosevelt administration, which deliberately downplayed the announcement of Hitler’s Final Solution by handing it to Rabbi Wise rather than an administration official. For the duration of the war, the government, believing that “rescue through victory” was the only reasonable policy, tried to head off public agitation for special efforts to rescue European Jewry. And for the duration of the war, both newspapers cooperated by burying details of the Holocaust.

Wise, sometimes called the “King of the Jews” because of his leadership of an incredible array of Jewish organizations and umbrella groups, might have been expected to press for rescue efforts and for lifting immigration restrictions on Jewish refugees. But Wise had a close personal relationship with the president (whom he called “boss”) and never attained the independence of judgment to recognize that his hero, despite public expressions of friendship for Jews in general, was acquiescing in the murder of the European Jews. Only a popular grassroots campaign, bypassing the official Jewish leadership, might have overcome the administration’s hostility and the indifference of the mainstream media.

Improving Heart Health

For those of you who may have concerns about heart health, and may consequently be on statins, blood-thinners or similar medications, here is some research on diet supplements that you may find interesting. Cardiovascular diseases are the result of generalized inflammation in the vascular system, the arteries and veins in our body: 

Plaque deposits line the walls of damaged arteries. A normal, healthy artery is too strong and the walls are too smooth for a deposit to form. Your body is remarkable and forms these deposits as a way to treat a broken or damaged wall in an artery. Unless the crack is fixed, or plugged with a plaque deposit, blood can break through the arterial wall completely and this would be total disaster. So, the body repairs the arterial walls with a sort of mortar, or plaque. 

A different article notes: 

Atherosclerosis affects only herbivores. Dogs, cats, tigers, and lions can be saturated with fat and cholesterol, and atherosclerotic plaques do not develop (1, 2). The only way to produce atherosclerosis in a carnivore is to take out the thyroid gland; then, for some reason, saturated fat and cholesterol have the same effect as in herbivores. 

Old world primates, such as men, are among the few animals on earth that do not produce vitamin C.  Linus Pauling, the only person to win two unshared Nobel prizes, proposed that heart disease was actually a reaction to insufficient amounts of vitamin C in the diet. That is, he believed vascular disease was a form of sub-clinical scurvy. Since these three elements were key to building strong arterial walls, his treatment regimen involved high doses of Vitamin C, lysine and proline. (Article 1, 2, 3).

So, why does heart disease happen? Pauling theorized that lipoprotein (a), which the human body does produce, is used by the body as a (poor) substitute for vitamin C. Lipoprotein (a) levels are genetically determined. Some people produce none, others produce high levels. Levels are only somewhat resistant to change by diet or physical activity (Article 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6). However, Lp(a) typically constitutes the majority, if not the entirety, of arterial plaque. Lp(a) appears primarily in primates who cannot synthesize Vitamin C ascorbate (Article 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8):

“LDL‐C” was associated with incident cardiovascular disease only when lipoprotein(a) cholesterol content was included in its measurement. Refinement in techniques to accurately measure LDL‐C, particularly in patients with elevated lipoprotein(a) levels, is warranted to assign risk to the responsible lipoproteins. (Article 1)

Apolipoprotein(a) carries 85% of all the oxidized phospholipids which can damage the coronary intima of all individuals and facilitate the development and eventual rupture of plaques. (Article 3)

The new PCSK9 inhibitors are one of the few things that seem to reduce Lp(a) levels.

TLDR:  Atherosclerosis has three main aspects: inflammation, arterial wall damage, and plaque build-up. The supplements below address each of those three aspects. The fibrinolytics break down existing plaque, the anti-inflammatories reduce the inflammation that attracted the plaque, and the anti-cholesterol supplements prevent new or additional plaque formation. Meanwhile the vitamin C, lysine and proline re-build the vessel walls to restore circulatory health.

Fibrinolytics (don't use before surgeries)

• Lumbrokinase reduces fibrin clots and may also reduce arterial plaque. It is used to treat stroke, atherosclerosis, coronary artery disease and deep vein thrombosis (Articles: 1, 2, 3).  Amazon has lumbrokinase as does Walmart.
• Nattokinase dissolves clots and arterial plaque, while lowering blood pressure. It operates via a different mode than lumbrokinase. (Articles:  1, 2, 3, 4, 5). Amazon has nattokinase supplements. (Article: 1)
• Natto (the fermented soybean food) has been shown to decrease both gut inflammation and arterial plaque formation.  In addition to taking nattokinase pill supplements, you may also consider eating natto (fermented soybeans). It is available in the frozen food section of Asian grocery stores like 99 Ranch. 
• Serrapeptase is sometimes recommended as well. Of the three, it is the weakest in fibrinolytic activity. 
• Indonesian tempe, a fermented soybean food, may also be a natural fibrinolytic agent. 

Anti-inflammatories

• Bromelain is an anti-inflammatory that treats angina pectoris, transient ischemic attack, thrombophlebitis and chronic rhinitis (Articles: 1, 2). Bromelain is also a fibrinolytic and may break down cholesterol plaques (Articles: 1, 2, 3). Don't use it before surgery (Article: 1, 2)  Amazon link.
• Taurine decreases blood pressure and inflammation. In a review published in Amino Acids, animal models suggest that a higher intake could help protect against heart disease and prevent fatty plaque build-up in the arteries. (Articles: 1, 2, 3). Amazon link. 
• Fisetin is an anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory that reduces death of heart cells (ischemic damage) following a heart attack. It also appears to reduce plaque buildup. It may also regulate PCSK9 (Article 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)
• Co-Q10. Statins are anti-inflammatories, but they often deplete the body of Co-Q10. Co-Q10 is an anti-inflammatory that improves mitochondrial function and may (or may not) reduce muscle pain common with statin use. Ubiquinol is the most active form of Co-Q10.  (Articles: 1, 2, 3, 4)

Cholesterol Reduction

• Quercetin is not only an anti-inflammatory, it lowers cholesterol by up to 12%. It is "is known for its anti-inflammatory, antihypertensive, vasodilator effects, anti-obesity, anti-hypercholesterolemic and anti-atherosclerotic activities." (Article 1, 2, 3). The lecithin-based form appears to be absorbed the best. (Article: 1)
• Berberine alone and in combination with other supplements provided an average LDL percent reduction of 20–30%. The good news: berberine appears to be a natural PCSK9 inhibitor. Oral dose from 150 mg to 1000 mg/day (Articles: 1, 2, 3, 4). Amazon link
• Citrus Bergamot Extract studies showed a significant decrease in total cholesterol, triglycerides and LDLc. The decrease in total cholesterol varied from 12.3% to 31.3%, from 7.6% to 40.8% in LDLc and from 11.5% to 39.5% in triglycerides. (Articles 1, 2, 3) Amazon link.
• Pantethine (this is NOT B5, it is a derivative) lowers cholesterol effectively. (Articles: 1, 2, 3) Amazon link.
• PCSK9 inhibitors will also reduce cholesterol, but these drugs are very new and very expensive. Not only is the above-mentioned berberine a natural PCSK9 inhibitor, so is quercetin, curcumin, cashews, walnuts and peanuts. This may be why daily nut consumption has long been understood to be heart-healthy.
• Find fish oil with the highest concentration of EPA you can identify. Note: the effectiveness of fish oil and EPA for assisting with heart disease is controversial, but a lot of cardiologists still recommend it. EPA reduces blood-clotting and triglyceride levels (Article: 1, 2).
• LDL Sweet Spot: "Our meta-analysis suggests that not only should LDL be reduced to a target level of < 80 mg/dL, but HDL should be increased to a target level of  >45 mg/dL to regress coronary plaques."

Re-building Arteries

• Lysine, according to Linus Pauling's research, provides essential cellular building blocks for repair of arteries. 2-3 grams daily for prevention, 3-6 grams for therapeutic benefit. "The use of vitamin C, lysine and proline is crucial for the body’s production of collagen and the protection of the endothelium of the artery walls" (Articles: 1, 2, 3) Amazon link.
• Proline, as articles referenced under "Lysine" show, can be even more effective than L-lysine. Both bind lipo-protein A, preventing plaque build-up. The reference interval for Lp(a) is 0-30 mg/dL. Take 250mg to 2000 mg proline daily. (Articles: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)

Vitamins (Arterial Rebuilding)

• Vitamin C and D are both good for general immune system support. Vitamin C is critically important for the creation of the cross-links in the collagen matrix that makes up strong arterial walls. It is possible high doses of Vitamin C may also reduce arterial plaque and slow down progression of atherosclerosis. Because it is water-soluble, it is impossible to overdose on Vitamin C. Any excess is excreted through the kidneys with no damage to the body. 
• Low levels of Vitamin D are correlated to higher rates of congestive heart failure. As we age, vitamin D is harder to absorb, so higher doses are not unreasonable. Because it is fat-soluble, it is possible to overdose on Vitamin D, so regular blood tests should be used to monitor the levels.
• Vitamin K2 is reported to prevent arterial calcification. It has different forms. The serum half-life of MK-4 variant of K2 is a few hours while the MK-7 variant can last up to 3+ days. (Articles: 1, 2, 3).  Amazon link.

Men's Heart Health: best cholesterol tests

Potassium is a good heart health supplement, that also has positive effects on reducing stroke and blood pressure. There are no over-the-counter potassium supplements, but eating a couple of kiwis a day, or an avocado, will provide more potassium than a banana. 

Zinc also appears to be associated with heart health and reduced inflammation. However, too much zinc can interfere with copper absorption. Stay at or under 40 mg/day. Take it orally, don't use intranasal zinc, as it could destroy your sense of smell. (Article 1, 2, 3)

Green tea may be of benefit in lowering cholesterol and blood pressure (Article 1, 2)

Avoid red yeast rice (it is just an unregulated statin), L-Arginine and garlic supplements. (Article: 1). 

This 2019 article is a summary review of the effect various supplements have on heart health. This article reviews the effects of statins and Dr. Ornish's diet-based approach to reduce cholesterol.

        

Fun Facts

We are told that physical activity and plant-based diets prevent hypertension and heart disease. Africa has by far the highest number of people eating plant-based diets in the world. Africans have among the lowest cholesterol levels in the world. Africa also has the highest rate of heart disease and hypertension.

"In Africa, where many developing countries in the world are located, plant protein is the most important protein source for the population."

https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/visualizing-daily-protein-sources-region

"Western European countries like Greenland, Iceland, Andorra, and Germany have the highest cholesterol levels in the world, with mean serum total cholesterols of around 5.5 mmol/L. African countries have the lowest cholesterol, some as low as 4 mmol/L."

"The highest age standardized disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) due to hypertensive heart disease (HHD) were recorded in Africa."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9686438/

"Racial differences affect the heritability of apo(a), with African-Americans having a lower heritability when compared to Caucasian populations 4. Despite lower heritability, absolute Lp(a) levels are highest in people of African ancestry"

Maybe it isn't just about eating plants.