The Forgotten People

Why do Jews so often stand up for Native American rights?

My grandpa took me apple peddling among the Cherokee, Muskogee, and Choctaw tribes when I was young.  He had learned to speak Cherokee because some of his customers had never learned to speak English.

We would go into communities that were entirely Native American like Chewy.  They lived very differently than everyone else and would give me some of their traditional foods to eat that had been passed down from before the day when worlds collided.  It was like being transported to another time and place.

Grampa would often finish our peddling by going to the school at Stillwell or Westville, where he would give them the remaining apples – sometimes several bushels.  He had been doing this for a long time and when we pulled up the Native American children would run up to our truck.

Grampa would also buy things from some of the Native Americans to peddle like strawberries.  Sometimes, I would help pick the strawberries with their children.

One girl in Chewy gave me a half-gallon bucket of strawberries that she had picked.  Grampa said that was because she was sweet on me.

In one incident, I had done something that Grampa had told me to not do but he had not seen me do it.  When he asked me if I had done it, I got a whipping because I would not lie to him.  A Cherokee woman had seen the whole thing and gave me a Cherokee name “Tlugisgi-kaneisdi”, which means “His word is iron”.

(Note that many English speakers cannot make the “tl” sound found in many Native American words, so a vowel is artificially inserted such as “a” to make it easier for them to pronounce.  So, “talugisgi” is often the transliterated from Cherokee for their sake, even though “tlugisgi” is correct.)

I spent so much time among the Cherokee that I can often spot people with Cherokee ancestry at a glance.  I have verified this by asking people of every one of the six shades of brown if they had Cherokee ancestry, to which I usually get a response like “how did you know?”.  To me the distinct Cherokee features that showed up in things like their hairline, nose, ear, and eye shape, was as obvious as their skin, eye, and hair color.

So, it is not hard to understand why I would take up the cause of Native Americans.  However, many Jewish people have also done so.

For example, even though I had attended powwows and the like growing up I never heard Native American Christian music other than traditional American hymns like “Amazing Grace” sung in Cherokee.  It was not until I got older that I heard renditions of these songs played on instruments like Native American flutes.

However, when I was watching a video on YouTube of an American Jew who had made Aliyah to Israel, Joshua Aaron, I heard for the first time a Native American, Chief Joseph Riverwind, sing a new and distinctly Native American sounding contemporary Christian song with him in Israel.   This popular Christian Jewish artist was using his popularity to raise awareness of the needs of Native Americans and how their European American brothers should be helping them.

Another popular Christian Jewish artist, Beckah Shae, has taken the cause even further.  She first featured Native American instruments and people in her 2014 music video “heartbeat” and has featured them in almost every song she has made since 2019.  She has become in her words, “a social justice champion for indigenous people”.

These efforts have not been in vain.  They have raised interest and awareness of Native American Christian artists.  It prompted me to look for more Native American Christian music and I found groups like “Broken Walls” who play Christian music that is distinctively Native American.

This is hardly new and is not limited to just Jewish Americans who follow the Man of Truth (Yeshua HaMashiach aka Jesus Christ).  Jewish Americans have been taking up the cause of Native Americans since colonial times.  They have fought for them in the court room, often free of charge, and in the court of public opinion by raising awareness of their plight in various media outlets. 

These Jewish Americans were so effective in working with the Children of Truth to raise awareness about the plight of the Five Civilized Tribes that the American public became so divided over the Great Removal that America almost erupted into civil war – twice!  Like the Children of Truth, they have walked the trail of brotherly love with the Native Americans.

Why did they do this?

It is not because Native Americans are part of the lost tribes of Israel.  Only the Cherokee are recognized by the state of Israel as possibly - but not definitely - being Jewish.

The evidence that Jews were in a place like Greece does not make everyone in that place Jewish and it requires a more than that to determine who the real Israelites are.  The Father of Truth (YHVH aka God aka THE LORD) was not joking when He said that He would scatter the people of Israel among all ethnic groups if they did not obey Him (Deuteronomy 28:62-65).

Native Americans are often the forgotten people of America.  Jewish people understand how painful that is, for they were often the forgotten people of Europe.

Both Native Americans and Jewish Europeans have had to fight against efforts to exterminate them out of existence, like the ironically named “Texas Party” planned to do in Texas.  (“Texas” comes from a Caddo (a Native American tribe) word that means “friend”.)

When extermination did not work due to the efforts of the Children of Truth in America, a new plot to erase their identity was formed called assimilation.  This plan is still advocated by many.

As late as the 1970s, a bill was introduced in the US Congress that called for all Native Americans to be completely assimilated to remove the need to maintain the benefits given to Native Americans in various treaties.  However, President Nixon made it clear that the bill would be dead on arrival if it made it to his desk. 

The argument was that since most European Americans and African Americans have some Native American ancestry, then if the Native Americans intermarried with non-Native Americans enough and abandoned all of their Native American customs, within a few generations they would be no different than any other Americans.  Then they could just be treated like all other Americans.

Jews have faced the same thing for centuries in Europe.  The False Church of Rome would go through periods where they would try to force all Jewish people to join it under the threat of torture and death with things like The Inquisition.

Even though, this appeared to work to some extent, it was ultimately unsuccessful.  While many Jewish did join the False Church of Rome, often the False Church of Rome never let many of them forget that they were Jews.  Others managed to find ways to hide their Jewish identity, particularly in Spain.

Jews have been dealing with this since at least the time of the Persians.  Esther had to keep her Jewish ethnicity hidden until it was time to reveal it, but no one was able to make her forget it (Esther 2:5-10).

There were also efforts to force Native Americans children into government boarding schools away from their families to teach them to not be Native Americans.  The same thing happened with the Jews numerous times, but like Daniel and his friends, these efforts have always failed in the end (Daniel 1:3-16).

Jews often still existed in many places in Europe, but they were forgotten.  They were given no voice as if they did not exist, just Native Americans had no representation in the “diversity” council of my former employer - which I pointed out to them.

So Jews, not only know what it is like to be the forgotten people like Native Americans, but they also have the experience to help Native Americans not be assimilated out of existence.

However, neither Jews nor Native Americans can win this battle on their own.

The Jewish people did not preserve themselves from extermination or assimilation on their own, but it has been the Father of Truth who has been preserving them (Jeremiah 31:35-36).  The Children of Truth have been the providers of refuge that He promised to use to protect them while they were scattered outside of their own land (Ezekiel 11:16-17).

The Father of Truth is also the hope of the Almodadi.  The First Nations being descendants of Almodad is not just supported by their own oral history and the Book of Truth, but it is also the story told by the evidence.

The Man of Truth has become the light of the Five Civilized Tribes as well as many other tribes of Native Americans.  He will cause Native Americans and European Americans to dwell together in peace like Wampanoags and Pilgrims once more.

No one can curse those who the Father of Truth has blessed (Numbers 22:12).  Every ethnic group, including the Almodadi, who makes Him their God will be blessed (Psalm 33:12).

When the Father of Truth fights on behalf of a people, it does not matter how badly they are outnumbered (2 Chronicles 20:15). When Native Americans put their trust in the Father of Truth, then He will become their defender (Psalm 18:1-3). 

The Father of Truth will preserve them and give them an inheritance in the Earth, while their persecutors will be wiped off the face of the Earth (Psalm 37:20-22).  When the Man of Truth rules over the Earth, then stronger ethnic groups will no longer be able to oppress them, and Native Americans will have control over their own affairs (Micah 4:1-4).

Native Americans will no longer be the forgotten people when they do not forget the Father of Truth (Psalm 9:17-18).  Their oppressors will become the forgotten people (Psalm 34:16).

Of course, what happens to each individual is up to them.  No one can come into the House of Truth for them.

People of every ethnicity will be saved if they will surrender control of their life to the Man of Truth because they believe that the Father of Truth raised him from the dead (Romans 10:9-11).  Every person, no matter their ethnicity, will have to give an account of themselves to the Father of Truth (Romans 14:12).

Come into the House of Truth!