For any Jew who hasn't seen through the utter sham that Medved, Feder and Lapin represent, along with their 'fighting for a Judeo-Christian heritage' in America that requires burying menorahs in favor of Christmas trees; here's your chance to get off that bandwagon for good.
Jews who joined the struggle believed they were fighting for religion against secularism. This is the wake up call demonstrating that it's not for our religion. When Christians fight for a Christian symbol or tradition, it's celebrated as part of the struggle to bring back religion in America. when Jews fight for a Jewish symbol, it's treated as an evil attack on Christianity and on all that's good and holy. Instead of holding the airport accountable, the Jews are held accountable instead for daring to want a Menorah.
I first came across this argument in Dershowitz's "Chutzpah" a number of years ago, where he succintly put it, "Every society that officially prefers religion over nonreligion eventually selects one religion as the true/preferred/dominant one." This is why, besides my own personal agnostic leanings, I find people like Dennis Prager and Daniel Lapin so wrongheaded- I'm not saying secularism can do no wrong, but an increase in American religiosity, particularly on a legal level, cannot be good for non-Christians, regardless of whether they happen to be more liked by some Christians (Jews) than other groups (Muslims, atheists, Buddhists). The weirdest attempt to disprove this I ever encountered was in a Prager book when he claimed that Christianity was better for Jews than secularism because Hitler and Stalin were secular.
As I see it, Dershowitz got it right fifteen years ago when he wrote that Jews have to demand equal citizenship, not second-class citizenship. America not being a Christian nation is what gives Jews that protection, and it's hardly in their interest to attempt to attack that protection simply to pick up the scraps from Christian leaders' tables.
Incidentally, the exploitation of the rabbi's case is absolutely outrageous, though it seems that the way he went about trying to get his menorah up there was pretty dumb. It's also unclear to me to what degree this move was on the behalf of Jews versus Chabad itself (as exemplified by the fact that the menorah in question was the distinctive spiky Chabad type, not a curvy or blocky one, which I'm more familiar with). I mentioned this to a BT friend of mine who has some Chabad aquaintances, and she said "that's just the way the Rambam did it". I was suspicious but kept quiet until I could go to the nearest Google. Wouldn't you know it, I was right. Now if the rabbi had been advocating something like this, I'd be all for it. Yum, gelt.
Sorry, Rav. You should have stuck with what you're good at. Maybe next time try welding a menorah onto a plane (Dude, Mitzva Bombers! Hey, maybe Chabad can merge with the new Haredi Air.)
Edit: Hey, the rav finally got a menorah up! And, predictably, there's already more controversy. Oy. I hope he's getting extra mitzva points for this one.
Double-edit: Less people less idiots has a thought-provoking post about Christmas and Dobbs. And just for the hell of it, here's a nice crotch-shot of Lou, courtesy of loudobbs4president.com. Ow, my eye!
3 comments:
"I first came across this argument in Dershowitz's "Chutzpah" a number of years ago, where he succintly put it, "Every society that officially prefers religion over nonreligion eventually selects one religion as the true/preferred/dominant one."
That's true enough but it's incomplete. It applies to belief systems in general which is why in the end keeping religion out of the public square doesn't resolve anything. Dogmatic beliefs that segregate and reduce those who don't accept them to second class status and hijack the culture, are to be found everywhere and don't only function as religious beliefs.
The best way is still to let the not too virulent ones fight it out and maintain a balance of sorts.
The reality though is what's happening now with the so-called war on christmas really isn't a religious war, it's a clash over culture and the christian part is just the tail end of it
Dogmatic beliefs that segregate and reduce those who don't accept them to second class status and hijack the culture, are to be found everywhere and don't only function as religious beliefs.
No arguments here, though I do think that maintaining the separation clause is a useful tool in attempting to control some of those dogmas.
The best way is still to let the not too virulent ones fight it out and maintain a balance of sorts.
Well ideally there'd be the marketplace of ideas approach; the problem is that you have extremists on all sides who want to take no prisoners and view any minor gains as a starting-point, not a status-quo.
The reality though is what's happening now with the so-called war on christmas really isn't a religious war, it's a clash over culture and the christian part is just the tail end of it
Pretty much. It's interesting how religion is used, abused, and invoked to support some of these positions.
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