The Exorbitant Cost of Tikkun Olam

For John, BLUF:  The writer poses a very important question.  How much risk should you accept, for you and yours, in the name of doing good?  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Healing the World:  Can We Safely Rescue Those Who Wish Us Harm?

Tikkun Olam "repair of the world".

From PJ Media, by Canadian David Solway, 13 JULY 2018.

Here is the lede plus three:

Recently, my wife and I received an invitation from a respected friend to attend an event in support of the beleaguered Yazidi community of northern Iraq, now suffering under the predatory onslaught of ISIL and other Islamic groups.  Soliciting a contribution of several thousand dollars on the part of fifty donors to subsidize a documentary on these hapless victims, and no doubt to pressure our government to bring in more than the approximately 800-1000 Yazidi currently in Canada, the organizer is clearly dedicated to a worthy cause.

National Post columnist Barbara Kay, who was present at the event, wrote:  “It is baffling to me that the gravity of the situation for this tiny people -- perhaps a million in all -- has failed to arouse the critical mass of support it deserves in its darkest hour …  If choices must be made, our government should prioritize victims of genocide over refugees.”

I confess to deep-seated skepticism.  A Kurdish religious sect practicing a syncretic faith blending elements of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, the Yazidi are strictly endogamous, observe a rigorous caste system and maintain an equally rigorous honor code.  Yazidi honor killings are not uncommon in Germany, which boasts a large number of Yazidi immigrants. Errant daughters are at considerable risk for their lives.  If choices must be made, I am not sure the country needs another contingent of problematic immigrants or of refugees, despite the pitiful situation in which they find themselves.

Not all worthy causes are of equal merit. I do not understand why my friend and those associated with him are not, for example, appealing for contributions in aid of Israel whose people have been subject since 1948 and even before to Palestinian terror attacks, and are now suffering renewed rocket barrages as well as fire kites launched from Gaza, as a result of which 2,500 acres of farmland and forest have been burned.  I cannot understand why he has not prioritized the hundreds of thousands of Christians being slaughtered in Iraq and other Muslim countries, whose ordeal seems to me no less extreme than that of the Yazidi and who are, after all, part of the Judeo-Christian heritage.  As my wife responded to the request for funds, “this is not to say that the Yazidi as a whole deserve the terrible things that have been done to them [but] we already have lots of problems in Canada with newcomers who hold passionately to beliefs that are inimical to Canadian values.”  She could have said, with justification, Western values.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff