“In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”

So said George Orwell. I’m thinking about this right now. It’s Yom Kippur, the holiest of Jewish High Holy Days, and I am fasting. I really should not be working, so let’s not consider this work. I certainly won’t get paid for it, so I guess it’s not work at all.

It’s more like a letter to my friends who like the truth, and it’s about Jews and Israel and Richard Nixon. I was greeted this morning with a vicious attack on Richard Nixon as a supposed racist and anti-Semite — naturally evoking Donald Trump as a supposed racist and anti-Semite as well. The article rehashed a number of audio quotes of RN calling Jews country club sneering names and said this was proof that he was a vile anti-Semite.

Here’s the Revolutionary Act: The truth is that Richard Nixon was the best friend the Jews of this earth have ever had. He literally put America on the line to save Israel in the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Time has passed and memories have faded. But on Yom Kippur 1973, Anwar Sadat launched a brilliant, devastating invasion of Israel across the Suez Canal. Stealthy, tactically superb, the attack overwhelmed the thinly manned positions of the Bar-Lev Line along the canal.

Mrs. Golda Meir, the PM, had been warned over and over about an attack but had done nothing to prevent it or to defend against it in depth.

The Egyptians were roaring into the Sinai and there was not much the Israelis had there to stop them.

The usual response was to employ the magnificent Israeli Air Force, pound for pound the best Air Force in the world, to strafe and stop the Egyptians. The existential crisis was that the USSR, Jew haters through and through, had given Egypt their best surface-to-air missiles. These were so potent that they were blowing the Israeli Air Force out of the sky in terrifying numbers. It was Yom Kippur and the Israelis were slow to mobilize and when they did, they went into battle without their usual air supremacy. The situation was dire. Mrs. Meir had taken out suicide pills. She was faced with the choice of using nukes to save Israel and possibly inviting Soviet nuclear reprisal or self-destruction.

She called Richard Nixon and told him how bad the situation was. He did not hesitate. Against the advice of the anti-Semites at the State Department and some also at the Department of Defense, Nixon ordered that the formidable “black boxes” of the USAF be shipped by jet from NATO bases to Israel. These black boxes, the product of spectacularly great American defense firms, could and did jam the radars of the Soviet SAMs. The Israelis learned to use them immediately and in two days, the tide had turned.

Israel could shoot down the Egyptian MIGs and Sukhois. Israel could batter the Egyptian arm to a standstill while Israeli artillery, armor, and infantry pushed the Egyptians back.

Most daring of all, under the Israeli air umbrella, the Israelis crossed the Red Sea south of Suez, came up behind the Egyptian army, cut off their supplies, and threatened to take Cairo. Sadat was a smart man. He called on the Soviets for help. The Reds threatened to drop Red Army paratroopers into Egypt and fight the Israelis and if necessary use atomic weapons.

Richard Nixon, beset by Watergate, hounded by the terriers of hell in the media, did not back down. He went to DEFCON 2, a state which preceded nuclear war. That is, Richard Nixon, the alleged anti-Semite, risked nuclear conflict to save Israel. The Russians backed down.

Sadat was no dope. He made peace then and there and Israel was saved. Soon thereafter, Egypt made a lasting peace with Israel. This cost Sadat his life as Islamic terrorists killed him for making peace with the hated Jews.

Now, think about this. Richard Nixon, painted by the media as a Jew hater, risked everything to save Israel. To save the Jews from a second Holocaust, he risked nuclear war with the USSR, a gigantic nuclear power. He gave Israel the black boxes to save the day after the Egyptian invasion. And, yes, when he had dined well, he made jokes about Jews. How incredibly stupid can the media and the “historians” be? How trivial name calling is compared with saving Israel. As my pal, Judah says, I would rather have a man call me a mocking name and save my life than not call me a name and let some gangsters murder me.

Richard Nixon did what no other world leader has EVER done: he risked his nation’s safety to save the Jews. On this Day of Atonement, let us fast and pray to atone for our words about Richard Nixon, savior of Eretz Israel.

Never in the history of this nation has a President been as much of a hero for peace and for us Jews, and yet as reviled as Richard Nixon. It’s shameful. It’s morally shameful.