False Choices

One recurring theme of my blog, and of American Jewish discourse in the 20th and 21st centuries, has to do with religion (particularly) Christianity in politics.

Most Jews on the liberal end of the political (and/or religious) end of the spectrum tend to be very suspicious of religion mixing with politics, while folks on the more conservative end seem to run the gamut from unconcerned to enthusiastic, depending on the particular bent of their philosophies.

Politically right-wing Jews sometimes tend to act as if they have something to prove by arguing not only that they aren't bothered by a Christian politician's religiosity, but that they think it's positively super.

Enter Ben Shapiro. Shapiro, only in his mid-20s, has already gotten a law degree and published three books. He's also had a syndicated column for years that appears on WorldNetDaily and Townhall, among other places. Since Shapiro is a pal of conservative crank Joseph Farah, it's not surprising that his political views tend to be a tad right-wing. Things like suggesting that Al Gore should be prosecuted for sedition. Or saying that FBI reluctance to policing pornography was comparable to turning a blind eye towards genocide.

Never is Ben more on fire, though, then when he gets to be a professional Jew, in the long-established mold of Dennis Prager, Michael Medved, and more recently Michael Savage and Jackie Mason. Because Ben isn't just Jewish, my friends: he's an Orthodox Jew. Which, conveniently enough, puts him a great position to lambast anyone who disagrees with him as a fake Jew, or as Ben so cleverly put it a few months ago, a JINO:
   

the Jews who vote for Obama are, by and large, Jews In Name Only (JINOs). They eat bagels and lox; they watch "Schindler's List"; they visit temple on Yom Kippur -- sometimes. But they do not care about Israel. Or if they do, they care about it less than abortion, gay marriage and global warming. 

...The only way to reconcile [a] high level of support for Israel with a high level of support for an anti-Israel, anti-Semitic administration lies in the fact that all voters have priorities, and that Israel is not these voters' highest priority. Which is why they are known as JINOs.

...Being truly Jewish requires allegiance to basic Judaic principles; the first and foremost of which is identity with the Jewish people and its enlightened national aspirations. In the Tanach (the Jewish canon, including the Old Testament, the Prophets and the Writings), when Ruth converts to Judaism, she states, "Your people will be my people and your God my God." The connection between Jews and the land of Israel is the running theme of the Old Testament. Any Jew who does not take these principles seriously -- more seriously than global warming or affirmative action, for example -- is a JINO.

And voting for Obama is a violation of those principles.

...Simply put, Obama is an enemy of the Jewish people and the State of Israel. And any Jew who votes for him betrays his or her brothers and sisters at home and abroad. By definition, a vote for Obama is a vote against the truly Jewish part of Jewish identity. There is a reason that the observant Jewish community votes overwhelmingly Republican -- they vote on Jewish principle.

Why bother exposing JINOs for what they are? First, it helps non-Jews understand the dynamics of the Jewish community -- it is not monolithic, and much of it is not authentically Jewish. Second, it acts as a shaming mechanism for those Jews who throw away Jewish principle in pursuit of back-slapping from their liberal buddies. And they should be ashamed of what they do. They are the moral equivalent of Jewish Neville Chamberlain voters in 1939. They must understand that their votes have consequences.

Jewish identity is about more than ethnicity... Being Jewish means something. And if it means anything, it means that voting for Barack Obama immediately places you in opposition to the Jewish people.

Thanks for the memo, Chief Rabbi Ben. Good to know that besides being an Israel hawk, you also moonlight as Jew-Pope.

Anyway, this winds up being important now because a while back a column of Ben's focused on Gov. Rick Perry and about how jazzed up he is about his faith. And to Ben, this is quite possibly the coolest thing since Moses came down from Sinai and told everyone to vote Republican.

For those who couldn't tell from my name, I'm a Jew. Not only am I Jew, I'm an Orthodox Jew. I pray three times a day to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. I keep kosher. I wear phylacteries in the morning, and I say the Shema at night.

Yeah, nothing's more authentically Jewish than the word "phylacteries." 

And I love Texas Gov. Rick Perry's "The Response."

On August 6, Perry is hosting a "day of prayer and fasting" in Houston. "With the economy in trouble, communities in crisis, people adrift in a sea of moral relativism, we need God's help," Perry said in announcing the event. "That's why I'm calling on Americans to pray and fast, like Jesus did, and as God called the Israelites to do."

Ben was pissy because liberals were ridiculing Perry's "Response", calling it a "bizarre and fetishistic anti-religious frenzy." But frankly, I'm not mad about this. It just seems transparently... silly. It's another attempt to get attention, a-la Glenn Beck. I find it more annoying than anything else, given that Perry is exploiting his faith (and the Old Testament for extra religious cred and a possible attempt at ecumenism) for political points, to show people how devout and humble he is.

Ben will have none of it, though:

There is nothing wrong with Perry's "The Response." In fact, it is profoundly right to request that God look kindly and benevolently on the United States of America. Even those who don't believe in God should be able to recognize that peaceful public displays of faith strengthen the unity of our nation.

Sigh. Yes, Ben, you are correct that a peaceful, non-crazy public display of faith can't really hurt anything. On the other hand, a prayer rally that is used to either badmouth secularists/liberals or promote a Christian/religious exclusivity ( does not, IMO, really help the nation. To say nothing of the fact that I don't see how fasting and prayer are going to help the economy. If Reaganomics have taught us anything, in fact, Perry should have bought everyone burgers (or hot dogs).

Incidentally... do I really need to explain that something can only strengthen and promote unity if it's actually, you know... unifying?
  

Those who are concerned about Perry's openly Christian worship are again wrongheaded. For folks who love to spout about diversity, they sure hate to see it in action when the word "Jesus" is used.

This is where the rubber meets the road for Perry's Jewish critics. "There are many houses of worship here in Texas, not just Christian churches," said Kim Kamen of the American Jewish Committee about "The Response." "As the leader of our state, we hope he will bear that in mind." Overall, the Jewish community remains uneasy about public displays of Christianity.

They shouldn't. Perry is Christian, yes. So are the vast majority of those who will attend "The Response." In fact, so are almost 80 percent of Americans. And Perry's brand of Christianity is what maintains the sacredness of Judaism and the unbreakable bond between America and Israel. Invocation of Jesus shouldn't just be tolerated uncomfortably by the American Jewish community -- it should be welcomed.

I have to admit, over the years, my view of Christian support for Israel has slightly evolved. I am now in a place where I feel that I can accept that there are Christians who legitimately identify with and relate to Israel and Jews as peers as friends, not merely as stereotypical cartoon characters, and that it is unfair to dismiss all Christian allies or friends as being motivated by the Second Coming/Armageddon scenario.

However, considering how much suspicion and venom religious Jews like Shapiro hold for left-wingers and secularists, the idea that the motivations and religious ideology of Christian Zionists is unimportant or should be off the table for discussion or examination isn't just silly but downright hypocritical. There is a fundamental theological problem when you start talking about devoutly religious Christian support for Jews and Israel. That doesn't mean Christians may not be sincere. But it's certainly a legitimate issue to deal with.

At the end of the day, from my admittedly secular perspective, I am much more comfortable with Christians who relate to Israel and Jews as real people and a real country because they've given the matter serious thought and consideration, not because God or their pastor told them they must blindly support the Chosen People. Positive stereotypes might be better than negative ones, but it's still a stunted view of who you're talking to. That sort of fundamentalism isn't healthy for Christians, and the reality is, it's not that healthy for Jews, either.

Shapiro's automatic acceptance of Christian allies by virtue of the fact that they're religious and Zionist-ish is just as wrongheaded as an automatic shunning of Christians. What is needed are thoughtful Christians, of all stripes, interested and willing to engage with Jews. Right or wrong, the impression lots of Jews still have of fundamentalist American Christians is that they're a little too excited to help Jews. And frankly, it's kind of creepy.

Neither the sky nor the izmels are falling

Attention professional Jewish alarmists: I know you think San Francisco really hates Jews because it has things like anti-Israel protests and left-wing professors, but please believe me when I tell you that you're all off base on this one.

Just because a group of anti-circumcision doofi (backed by one particularly unhinged anti-Semite) managed to get their proposal to ban infant circumcision on the ballot does not mean:

A- That most of San Franciscans support them; or
B- That the measure will pass.

But no, as soon as conservative Jews hear "San Francisco" and "ban circumcision" together, all of a sudden we're in 1939 Germany. Get some perspective, guys. Less than 8,000 people (or 12,000 depending on your source) signed this petition, out of a city of 465,000 registered voters. Drop in the bucket much?

Never one to let facts get in the way of talking about how America hates Jews and that everyone needs to make aliyah immediately, Lazer was announcing as far back as March that not only was God totally pissed about this ballot measure, but also that it had already passed. That must be some impressive time-machine you've got, Lazer. Does it run on emunah?

Let's make a deal, crazies: if the ballot passes, I will make sure to talk about it on my blog and hang my head in shame at my much-beloved birthplace. On the other hand, if it doesn't pass, which of course will validate the fact that most residents of SF don't hate either Jews or circumcision, you will write a public apology to me and the other 400+ thousand people you slandered as dirty anti-semites.

Deal?

Defender of the Jerk

Glenn Beck has come out apologizing for his stupid comments about Reform rabbis on Tuesday. Being Beck, of course, there is a lot of rambling and meandering around what should be a rather simple admission (I screwed up, it was wrong, I apologize). First he pats himself on the back for being honest enough to admit his mistakes, unlike the New York Times (because that's relevant). He moves on to, first, blaming his comment on an unnamed friend (?) who he "trusts on things like this". So apparently Glenn Beck has an idiot Ortho-friend who he's tapped to be his Secretary of Jewish Affairs. Awesome.

Beck admits he made "one of the worst analogies of all time" and says he realized it even as he was making it but still "kept going," for reasons he doesn't bother to explain. I'm guessing it's either because he just didn't care, or because he thought it would get him more attention, and he likes that. He goes on to say that he's on radio for four hours a day and therefore, I don't know, should get a free pass for being a dumbass. Hmm, maybe if 4 hours a day results in making you say stupid crap on the radio, you should ask for a shorter show, Glenn. This is like a pilot continually crashing planes and blaming it on the fact that their route is too long. Beck finishes by talking about Abe Foxman, with whom he doesn't "agree with on, I think, anything." This is funny, given how pro-Israel Beck talks about being, and given that Israel advocacy is something Foxman has been on a tear about for the past decade-plus. I guess Beck's Jew Secretary has been slacking off.

So there it is, Beck is "sorry." Sorry for what, exactly? His comparison to radical Islamists. Not that he suggested Reform rabbis aren't real rabbis. Certainly not for his Holocaust rhetoric which he was getting criticized for in the first place. Nope, just the Islam thing. Typical.

But if you think Beck's comments were frustrating, you haven't seen anything yet. At almost the same time that Beck was apologizing, the Jewish Week posted an anti-Reform diatribe from its Associate Editor Jonathan Mark (since removed, replaced with an apology. It's nice, but I'd personally prefer to keep the post up so Mark's stupid column could be seen and ridiculed by all).

When Glenn Beck says that Reform Judaism is like radical Islam, insofar as both are more about politics than faith, he’s being unfair to radical Islam. 

Yes, both are deeply involved with politics and confuse their own politics with God’s. 

But radical Islamists seems to be much more serious about their religion. 

Reform rabbis often lead congregations whose overall culture is indifferent to Shabbat and kashrut, indifferent to daily prayer and intermarriage, and indifferent to religious literacy.

It wasn't a huge shock to hear this crap from Mark, who's not only a political conservative but also an experienced Reform-basher. Mark has criticized Reform Judaism previously, both for accepting "illegal aliens" in the ranks of the Jewish people (Jews of patrilineal descent) and for condoning gay marriage. And yes, he still seems particularly bothered about the Clinton-Mezvinsky wedding.

Only a Reform rabbi would officiate at an intermarriage on Shabbat itself, as did Rabbi James Ponet at Chelsea Clinton’s wedding. A Radical Islamist wouldn’t do that. 

Not even the Ten Commandments are as important to a Reform rabbi as intermarriage. The integrity of Shabbat (Commandment Four) was considered so meaningless that the ceremony couldn’t even wait until sunset. With a Reform rabbi, officiating for Clinton, a political figure, was more important than Shabbat, faith.

Not that Mark cares about things like details, but there actually is some data on this issue showing that, rather than the blanket approval he pretends was magically passed by the Great Sage Eric Yoffie shlita, the Reform movement has basically left the decision to officiate at intermarriages up to their individual rabbis. Reform rabbis thus run the gamut from people who will marry a couple if one partner is Jewish, regardless of what the other's beliefs are, to those who will only marry a couple if the partner makes a commitment to raise Jewish children and/or convert, all the way to those who won't marry anyone unless both partners are Jewish. It's a spectrum and depends entirely on the rabbis in question. Where there has been a top-down approach has been in how the movement has chosen to respond to families that want to join synagogues in which one parent is not Jewish. And, not that Mark wants to hear it, but Reform is not alone in paying attention to facts on the ground and noticing that marrying a non-Jew does not automatically mean that one is abandoning one's Jewish identity.

In response to this loss, Conservative Judaism has gradually begun including non-Jewish parents in life-cycle events. Rabbis might not officiate at mixed marriages, but they will often refer couples to someone who does and will provide prenuptial counseling. They will integrate the non-Jewish spouse in synagogue life after marriage. 

Even Orthodoxy has responded to the challenge of intermarriage. The haredi Eternal Jewish Family project actively encourages the non-Jewish spouse of a mixed marriage to convert to Judaism if he or she is willing to embrace an Orthodox lifestyle. This marks a departure from a more stringent position in Orthodoxy that rejects the possibility of conversion for the spouse of someone who has chosen to marry outside the faith.

Haredi rabbi and ex-Shas MK Chaim Amsellem has also waded into the pool with his book Zerah Israel, which argues that there are tangible ways for a person with Jewish heritage who is not halachically Jewish to demonstrate their "seriousness" and solidarity with the Jewish people, effectively establishing a third category apart from Jew and Gentile. According to Amsellem, this approach builds off traditional halachic sources.

It’s hard to imagine a Reform rabbi who didn’t frequently take political positions. Among their political positions is that we shouldn’t be Islamophobic; we should know that jihad is a spiritual struggle, not a violent one; that imams are moderates until proven otherwise. OK, all the more reason Beck is right. Reform rabbis themselves say that Islam is first a religion of peace, more than politics. 

It’s had to imagine a Reform rabbi who isn’t infatuated with the great Reform legends of fighting for Darfur, being part of the (imaginary) black-Jewish alliance, advocating for gay and transgender rights, hating Bush and Sarah Palin, cheering Obama’s pressure on Israel, all of which these Reform rabbis will attribute to their faith but it sure sounds like politics.

And it's really hard to imagine a Jonathan Mark column where he doesn't just aim his rear towards his computer and let loose.

First, what this boils down to is that Mark has done zero research into sussing out how many Reform rabbis are politically active. Zero. Not that this stopped him from opening his mouth. Second, like Beck, he conveniently focused his attention exclusively on Reform rabbis, pretending as if Orthodox Judaism (or its rabbis) was somehow apolitical. That would be very interesting news, considering how active Orthodox activists, politicians and leaders are in America, certain communities in Europe, and particularly in Israel. There are five explicitly Orthodox political parties sitting in the Knesset right now (nine, if you count all the single-MK parties that make up the National Union coalition). I don't see Mark attacking any of them for political activity. I don't see him criticizing Hasidic rebbes for playing king-maker in New York elections, or going after nutjobs like Yehuda Levin for making the rounds of Fox News and MSNBC. This is a double-standard, pure and simple. And while Mark has the right to disagree with the political positions or orientation that a movement or denomination supports (explicitly or implicitly), intellectual honesty requires him to take a good look at his own spiritual home as well. For every Reform rabbi who advocates for GLBT rights I bet you can find an Orthodox one who opposes them, for every one who is anti-Bush or Palin you can find one who supports them (and vice-versa with Obama). As Mark said, you can call these positions faith, but there's no question they're political as well. Why is it ok if you're Orthodox? Why is it ok if you're a Republican?

Radical Islamic leaders don’t go around saying that religion just means being ethical and good and voting for Democrats, the way most Reform rabbis do. Radical Islam believe that faith demands personal service to God, not just service to each other. 

Radical Islamic leaders don’t define their faith so singularly with one political party, as do most Reform rabbis, who seem to believe that Judaism never, ever, says no to liberal dogma. Their Reform Jewish faith, to hear so many tell it. is indistinguishable from their Reform Jewish poliitics. To many Reform leaders, the left can disagree with the Torah but the Torah can never disagree with the left. When in conflict, the Torah must adapt.

Reform Judaism teaches that part of service to God involves focusing on people, too. And they didn't invent in in Germany or Cincinnati, it goes back to the Ten Commandments.

And not to belabor the point, but imagine Mark's frustration if someone were to write a hit piece about Orthodox Jews, much less rabbis, with the same cavalier stereotyping he's employing. There are plenty of nasty things one could say about Orthodox rabbis elevating certain parts of the Torah (such as tzniut) over other values both secular and religious (such as human rights) but the implication is that that's ok because Orthodox Jewish politics come from the Torah.

Like Beck, Mark tries to talk out of both sides of his mouth:

There are many Reform Jews that I love and greatly admire. These are my people. I’d rather be the worst Reform Jew than the very best Islamist.

Uh huh. As I've said before, I'm pretty sure these friends don't actually exist. If they do I doubt they'll be friends much longer.

The last salvo really says it all:

Beck’s a better man than George Soros, and he’s a better Jew, too. If something bad, God forbid, ever happened to Israel, I’m convinced it would bother Beck more. One guy cares about me and the two countries I love. One guy doesn’t. 

I don’t like it when someone who cares about us so much is hated, is laughed at, because his caring is imperfect.

There you have it. Beck explicitly lied about Soros and accused him of being a Nazi collaborator, and Mark defends him. Ridiculously, he even says he's a "better Jew" than Soros, which is pretty funny given that you're comparing a religious Mormon to a secular Jew. I'm not sure exactly what High Priest Jonathan based this analysis on, but I suppose it's by virtue of the fact that Beck likes Israel and isn't Reform. (No word on whether Beck would count as a better Jew than a Reform rabbi, though-- I'm particularly curious about how he would stack up compared to this guy.)

Mark says he doesn't like it when someone cares about Jews and is hated and laughed at for it. Which is pretty funny considering how much ahavat yisrael this column is dripping with. If that's caring, Mark and Beck deserve each other.

Proving my point

Remember when I talked about the role xenophobia was playing it causing some folks to reject Obama and protest the Park51 project? Big thanks (or not) to resident yutz Jonathan Mark at the Jewish Week for being a great example.

Mark had two articles a week ago hammering home the point that Obama was, "at least technically" a Muslim. I can't decide if my favorite part is Mark's total disengenuousness (you can almost hear the Glenn Beck in him shrugging, "I'm just saying, is all,") or the way he uses Obama's parentage to bash Reform Jews on patrilineal descent, which is super-relevant to the discussion because... he decided so?

Observe:

As an Orthodox Jew, I believe that membership in a religion is not casual but legal, something like American citizenship (if you support the good people of Arizona). You can't just cross the Rio Grande and vote in Phoenix. There is a rigerous citizenship process, a conversion process, or there is Judaism's singular qualification -- being born to a Jewish mother.

But according to my non-Orthodox "Progressive" friends, religion is as religion does, you are what you feel, what you seem, and to the left of Conservative Jews (though surely soon for Conservative Jews, too), you are Jewish if your father was. Intermarried people, technically non-Jews, who never converted, are allowed to participate in the Sabbath services of many liberal synagogues. The Jewish people are filling up with "illegal aliens" given amnesty. Non-Jews claim Jewish credentials by virtue of how they act, not what they actually are.

Wow. Do you work hard to come up with these ridiculous comparisons? Or do they just come naturally after poking your brain with a stick a few times?

There are always stories in the papers about soldiers who've been killed while serving in the Israeli army but who can't be buried in Jewish cemetaries because these tragic soldiers are not Jewish, and therefore must can only be buried in non--Jewish cemetaries. There always follows an uproar from non-halachic Jews -- how dare we not bury them in the cemetaries where they want to be buried after what these soldiers did for the Jewish State!

Boy, are the Orthodox mean. Don't they know that religion has nothing to do with being Jewish?

Boy, your strawman sure is boring. Also, predictable.

By those modern and widespread standards in the Jewish community, where someone's religion is not judged by legality but by feelings and sympathy, then I'm getting more comfortable with the idea that Obama is a Muslim. Sure, he is technically a Christian, I know, he spent more than 20 years in Trinity Church in the pews of his spiritual mentor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the crude anti-Semitic and anti-American friend of Louis Farrkahn. You can't choose your family but yes, you can choose your mentors.

I know, Obama is a Christian by virtue of his maternal family, his mother was a Christian. 

And yet, by the modern Jewish standards of patrilinial descent, no questions asked, no-fault religion, Obama is a Muslim.

Except, not, because patrilineal (actually bilineal) descent in the Reform movement is actually predicated on involvement with the Jewish community. As opposed to traditional Orthodox matrilineal descent, which declares anyone with a Jewish mother Jewish until they convert. But, you know, details aren't really important here, because you're really not interested in them.

He is Muslim by patrilineal descent and what seems to be Islamic halacha.

As an op-ed contributor wrote in The New York Times in 2008, "In Islam, however, there is no such thing as a half-Muslim. Like all monotheistic religions, Islam is an exclusive faith. As the son of the Muslim father, Senator Obama was born a Muslim under Muslim law as it is universally understood. It makes no difference that, as Senator Obama has written, his father said he renounced his religion. Likewise, under Muslim law based on the Koran his mother's Christian background is irrelevant."

There is no provision in Judaism to renounce your religion, either.

Mazel Tov, so we get to include such great guys as Karl Marx, Torquemada, St. Paul and Zola Levitt back in the tribe. Yay?

So Obama is a Muslim because of his father -- patrilineal descent -- is one legitimate "halachic" position, although the topic has become so politicized it has rarely been seriously explored in most newspapers, Jewish or otherwise. 

Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that it's also irrelevant to his presidency? I mean, isn't doing an investigative report on Obama's "Islamic halacha" status sort of like trying to research what the Houston Astros thought of Bush's ownership style? At best, it's trivia. At worst, it's fodder for a hatchet job. If you think it's so significant, and it's not just about poisoning the well, make the case for why we should care. If you can't, there goes your argument.

The idea that Obama might be a Muslim was so quickly branded a slur by the left and the Obama camp, in particular

Again, no. The right has turned Islam and Muslim identity into a slur. Obama has stood by his position that he does not share his father's religion (which, again, the elder Obama renounced during his life). How is that branding it a slur?

and protecting Obama had become uppermost in the minds of so many journalists, that most Americans haven't been exposed to an intelligent "comparative religion" discussion about this.

What's to discuss? According to you, the facts are clear-cut. You claim that under Islamic law, he is Muslim. He says he does not consider himself Muslim or practice Islam. To date, no one has refuted this. You're suggesting there's some deeper layer going on here. I just don't see it. It would be one thing if he had grown up as a practicing Muslim and then converted, but this is like grilling Abraham Foxman on his Catholic connections based on his childhood experiences in hiding during WWII. Sorry Jon, but there's no "there" there.

The topic is often handled with a schoollyard brush-off, even in usually serious newspapers, by usually serious people: "He's not a Muslim, and you're stupid for saying so."

Let's break this down. If you insist on claiming Muslim connections in absence of evidence as a political cudgel to beat him with, you're not stupid, you're slimy. It IS stupid, however, to continue to beat a story that has no new developments. If he practices Christianity, not Islam, and there's no indication this has changed in the last twenty-plus years, in what way has the story changed? Was he a Muslim last week? Did he sneak into a mosque yesterday when no one was looking?

Yet, for those of us who like our religion discussed at length and with seriousness

Yeah, re-read your hatched job of The Rebbe again and say this with a straight face. I dare you.

what about the assertions in the Times' paragraph? Maybe if the topic was dealt with intelligently and properly -- not politically -- it wouldn't still be an issue going the wrong way in the polls for Obama a full two years later.

What am I missing here? Is there some magical information gap that you're holding out for, some smoking gun that would let you conclusively decide this one way or the other? Or is it that you're waiting for some upstanding journalist to "intelligently" analyze this non-story and make the call for you so you can finally cross it off your to-do list?

And what of the "non-halachic" point of view?

If service in the IDF, or working and living among the Jewish people, is the criteria, Obama had for years lived and studied and prayed among Muslims as a youth in Indonesia. 

Yeah, everyone knows that any praying you do in first grade defines you for life. Duh! Oh wait, three of those four years were in a Catholic school? Hmm. And the last one was an Indonesian public school that gave kids a free period for religious instruction once a week, not a fundamentalist madrassa, as has been claimed? Well... um... quick, look into my Hypno-coin!

And I love the assumption that "serving" one of your constituent groups is the same thing as being a member of that group. That makes sense, just ask House Representative Steve Cohen from Memphis, TN.

By every halacha-be-damned modern Jewish colloquial standard of who is a "member of the tribe," Obama is a Muslim, every bit as much as he is a Christian. 

Uh, except for the whole self-identification thing, which is kind of... what's the word? Paramount.

Two religions are OK in most modern Jewish homes, with Christmas trees and menorahs sharing the same living room, and Obama's childhood living room was both Islamic and Christian. He rejected neither, though Islam became politically inconvenient, which is why he didn't use his middle name Hussein publically until he was safely elected and inaugurated as "Barack Hussein Obama." And that is why the centerpiece of his foreign policy became outreach to the Islamic world while threatening Israel if they so much as built an apartment house in a Jewish neighborhood in Jerusalem, while Obama made zero demands on the Palestinian Abbas.

Yawn. Yeah, we know you hate intermarriage, Jon. But even though your paragraph is dripping with that special zesty mix of scorn and bitterness, it still doesn't mean that Obama's a Muslim-- particularly not by Reform standards. Sorry. Using your legal middle name does not mean you're suddenly embracing your heritage. And it seems to me like the actual centerpiece of Obama's foreign policy has been fighting major wars in two Muslim countries. I know you're writing for the Jewish Week and you've got some blinders on when it comes to Israel's significance but come on, man, read the news and have a little perspective. Israel has not been Obama's number 1 priority, positive or negative.

I'm not the only one who sees this. An increasingly number of Americans do, as well. WIth the end of legalistic standards of identification within almost all ethnic and religious groups, Americans are figuing, yeah, this guy sure seems like a Muslim.

Especially when they can say stupid crap like "seems like a Muslim" without any need to justify their remarks or define their terms. By the way, Jon, did I mention you "sure seem" like a slice of toast? I mean, you're both brittle, pockmarked, high-in-fiber...

Americans are a practical people. If it walks like a duck, and talks like a duck...

But spent 4th grade in a special school that gave it two hours of platypus instruction a week, and it hasn't called for platypus genocide yet, and its middle name is "Beaver-like tail", it must be a damn platypus sleeper agent. Clever bastard.

...Sixty percent of those who say Obama is a Muslim said they came to that conclusion through the media, the overwhelmingly liberal media.

Wait, the same liberal media that has banned all discussion of the topic and surrounded Obama with a "ring of propaganda"? You're a journalist and you don't see any contradiction here? Wow. Look, either the propaganda media is criminally incompetent or the public believe what they want and make up rationales later.

The people see and hear Obama in action, with 11 percent being more specific, saying it is not the media as intermediary but they figure Obama is a Muslim from his own "words and behavior," reports Pew.

Yay, more cryptic allusions. What behavior would that be, incidentally? All his praying to Mecca, perhaps? His demand that the White House only serve halal food? No? Oh, the fact that he's perceived as tough on Israel. Oh-Kay. Didn't realize George H.W. Bush was a Muslim. That explains a lot. Or, then again, not.

Are Americans really as stupid as some politicians, Jewish leaders and journalists would have you believe? How is it that the more Americans know about Obama, the more Americans think he is Muslim?

I'm going to say the old-timey winning formula of xenophobia, ignorance, fear, and manipulation by bullshit artists? Also, consider the counter-argument: by your reasoning, the only way the 20% can be right is if the other 80% is wrong. So who's calling who stupid?

Many Americans grew up with the old Lenny Bruce routine on "Jewish and Goyish."...By Lenny Bruce standards, we can say that Obama is as Islamish as lime jello is goyish.

You can SAY whatever you want, Marky. If you're going to claim you have proof, though, you kind of need to show your work. Right now you've got a middle name, a year in a school in Indonesia, an ex-Muslim atheist absentee father, an apathetic Muslim step-father, and a coolness towards Israel (read: settlements). Hardly a slam dunk.

Of course, as a Jew who respects halacha and the legal codes of other religions, I know full well that Obama is a Christian by matrilineal descent, that he was raised in a two-religion home to understand and love both Islam and Christianity. He probably tilts toward Islam now because perhaps he resents how for so many years, fighting to reach the top, he could only admit to Christianity, forced by politics or (a lack of a courage) to deny his father. Now he is a free to be as he chooses.

Oh good, you've gotten your telepathy implant. Guess what I'm thinking of your argument right now. Hint: It rhymes with "wool-schmidt".

My non-Orthodox friends who have drummed it into my head that a Jew is anyone who sort of seems like it, halacha and technicalities be damned, so I'm increasingly of the belief that, yes, Obama is a Muslim -- actually, like many children of intermarried parents, he is both Christian and Muslim. There have been numerous articles in Jewish papers regarding Chelsea Clinton's marriage to a Jew, and how Jewish that child might be, even if that child is officially a Methodist.

In a very real sense, Obama is that child. Like Chelsea's child, the father looms. 

Except, in a more, actually real sense, Obama is not a child, but a grown man, who has chosen his own identity. You happen to not like it because it interferes with your political narrative, so you're portraying him as a Muslim converso. It's an entertaining narrative-- in a kind of Tom Clancy meets Dan Brown meets Glenn Beck sort of way-- but you're basically combining the barest of facts with the laziest attempts at psychology. You might as well write a column-- hell, make it a book-- about how Teddy Roosevelt was "totally" a zoophile (the pieces all fall into place!). I mean, have fun and all, but don't act like you're proven some profound point.

OK, OK, Obama's a Christian, please don't waterboard me, I'll confess. I'm not saying Obama prays to Allah, eats Halal, or is in any way a religious Muslim. Hardly. But I've been taught by my Reform, Secular and intermarried friends that a Jew doesn't have to believe in God, or daven, or eat kosher, or be in any way observant, or even have a Jewish mother to be Jewish.

First of all, I call BS on these alleged non-Orthodox friends. Something tells me you made them up. Second, you're conflating several different groups and their different criteria to be Jewish. In all cases, the primary issue is self-identification. That doesn't exist here, except in your mind

Despite sounding tremendously satisfied with his lack of hard work, Mark must have still been a little worried that he hadn't convinced all his readers. So the next day, he brought out the big guns: historical comparisons! With that most famous quasi-Jew, Benjamin Disraeli!

Benjamin Disraeli was born of a Jewish father but was baptized and had a Christian upbringing, joining the Church as an adult. The prime minister didn't practice Judaism.

Barack Obama was born of an Islamic father but, after some grade-school Islamic education, had a Christian upbringing, joining the Church as an adult. The president doesn't practice Islam.

...Benjamin Disraeli has an entry in the Encyclopedia Judaica. Why? How is he a Jew? Why is he so often spoken of as a Jew? Yet no one is called "stupid" for calling Disraeli a Jew. People are called "stupid" for calling Obama a Moslem.

Never mind that AFAIK Disraeli embraced his Jewish roots, whereas Obama has framed his Islamic heritage as part of a larger multicultural narrative, or that in Disraeli's time Jews were unpopular but not being actively accused of being a traitorous fifth column to the British commonwealth in the way that plenty of people (including mainstream folks in positions of power and prestige) are doing that exact thing to Muslims. Mark can't be this stupid, which means he's trying to be coy.

Obama is no less a Christian than Disraeli was a Christian.

On the other hand, how is Obama less a Muslim than Disraeli was a Jew? Why is it a crime to think of Obama that way when we speak of Disraeli that way?

Who said it was a crime? Oh right, no one. The issue is that Obama's enemies are using "Muslim" as a way of poisoning the well and painting him as a foreign agent who wants to destroy the country. They have turned it into a slur,not unlike "Communist" during the Red Scare. How are you framing the question? Who's asking, and in what context? Those are the real issues. Why are you so invested in proving Obama's Muslim-ness?

And again, why should how we talk about Disraeli be the prime criteria we use with Obama? Who's to say Disraeli would have wanted to be as fetishized as he has been by the Jewish community anyway, considering he lived his life as an Anglican? Why use one example of lazy labeling to justify another?

Sorry Jonathan. Try again. This time, preferably using your brain.

The Language of Hyperbole

I went to a bilingual school. I work in a bilingual school. I know, from first-hand experience, that there are pluses and minuses to both bilingual and monolingual education. That's ok. But I can't help getting a little irked when I hear people that clearly know next-to-nothing about bilingualism start blaming it for the breakdown of American society. I know, I'm just weird that way.

Enter Barry Farber, another WND Court Jew and, apparently, Pat Buchannan impersonator. Barry wants to let you know that English is important. But not just important-- really, really important:

...The English language is the only glue holding America together.

Really? You don't think things like a shared economy, values, government, help even a little? Wow, that's a pretty dim view of American unity coming from a supposed patriot.

Strong? Startling? Yes, and also true. People in Alaska care about people in Florida. If there were a terrible hurricane in Key West, that would lead the news in Alaska. Now put that American map on top of Europe. If there were a terrible earthquake in Turkey, the people in Norway, being quite decent people, wouldn't say, "Don't bother me with that!" But there wouldn't be that same sense of "our people." You've got six major languages and 18 minor ones separating Norway from Turkey.

Ah yes. This must be why not a day goes by that good folks in Alabama and Hawaii don't take a minute to check in on our language-neighbors in Belize, Liberia and Micronesia.

Among America's major blessings is one unifying language – a blessing compounded by the happy fact that our particular language is also the universally acknowledged "international" language.

Um, no. It is not THE international language, it is is ONE of several. And right now, yes, it happens to be the most widely-spoken. However given that the economy of the US is stagnant while China, India, and even Russia seem to be on the rise, it seems foolish to discourage people from learning to speak some of those languages on the grounds that English will let you chat with folks in Fiji and Barbados. 100 years ago one of the most widely spoken international languages, particularly in Europe, was French. Now, not so much. Times change.

Those who would destroy America could do no better service to their goal than balkanizing America into a patchwork quilt of different languages.

Oh please. People balkanize themselves according to any criteria and using just about any excuse you give them. You might as well advocate banning baseball teams so Yankees and Red Sox fans will finally stop jabbering at each other.

They've succeeded in convincing too many Americans that you're somehow a hater, at least a little, with all that bluster about English.

It depends how you talk about it. If you rant about bilingualism being the downfall of American civilization, then, yeah, there seems to be a little hate there.

They cheer their success at leading well-meaning Americans to suppose that if so-called "English Only" legislation is passed, women on assembly lines will be dragged away in handcuffs if they're overheard speaking Spanish with one another. Try explaining to the hard-left that the law intends no such thing, that we're talking strictly about conducting public affairs in one consensus language only. Maria can continue to talk to Linda in Spanish, Hans to Fritz in German, Darko to Srechko in Serbian.

Barry, the issue isn't whether people are going to be sent to re-education camps, it's about the scope of such laws as well as the intent behind them. Whether Barry wants to admit it or not, there is a definite nativist streak in American politics these days, and it is coming out on such issues as immigration, "Culture War," and English. Some of the people who are carrying on about how English should be the only language are plainly anti-immigrant, and the language fight is part of that battle to forcibly Americanize people into an imaginary America of the 1950s.

Alabama, by the way, is lucky. They have driver's license exams in only 12 languages. I've heard that in Los Angeles you can choose from among 42 different languages! We've already had major traffic accidents because licensed drivers in America don't know what "Merge" means.

First, I don't believe you. Just because. But even if this were true, it demonstrates that we need stricter driving tests, not that there shouldn't be bilingual education or that America should be an official mono-lingual culture.

The so-called "bilingual education" programs have been pretty much revealed as employment scams for teachers who don't speak English too well; programs that wind up making the kids illiterate in two languages.

Spoken like a true ignorant moron. First of all, there are many different kinds of bilingual programs. While many public schools do have their classes taught by bilingual teachers, at my school, kids are taught by one teacher in one language, then by another in the other. Second, as I have discovered over the past few years, it is actually not very easy to become a teacher. In California, home of myself and the Tower of Babel you just referred to, it happens to be extremely hard. The only states that put more roadblocks in your way are four East Coast states that require you to get master's degrees. Now, in addition to all of that, you also have to have a separate certification, a BCLAD, in order to be allowed to be a bilingual teacher. This is also not easy to get. So believe me when I say this: Barry, you are talking out of your rear.

Second, assuming that there are probably some unqualified teachers in bilingual positions: again, this demonstrates that we need better teachers, better schools and better programs, NOT that bilingual education shouldn't exist. Does the fact that there are bad math teachers suggest that we should stop teaching math?

Also, the children of all immigrants are growing up speaking native, un-accented American English.

What I think Barry means is that if you just put immigrant children (or the children of immigrants) in English-only schools, they wind up speaking perfect English. Which, by the way, isn't true. It may happen, depending on circumstances and motivation. But probably not the norm. (Why would you even bother throwing out a ridiculous statement like "all?")

But what's actually more important in the context of this point is that there are years of long-term studies showing that students who come to school speaking one language who are allowed to keep learning that language IN ADDITION to English do better in school-- because not only can they continue communicating with their family members, stay connected with their home culture, etc... (which, among other things, helps them do better in school because their family is still involved in their education), they also THINK in that language! If you don't let Spanish-speaking kids learn in Spanish or Chinese-speaking kids learn in Chinese you are making them start all over again.

Another important argument for bilingual education is the fact that content transfers between languages. I spent three years of middle school learning geometry and trig in a language other than English. I had never had any English instruction in geometry until high school. However, as soon as I entered the classroom, I immediately understood what was going on. All I needed was vocabulary. Verbal reasoning, critical thinking, math, even reading and writing skills... all these things are helped, not hindered, by a bilingual environment... when the education is actually bilingual. (As opposed to kids speaking one language at home and another at school, which really just means that they are mono-lingual in two different contexts. Unless their parents are teaching them math or literature or science in their home languages at the same level they use at school, it's not actually bilingual education.) This is a point made in the very excellent documentary Speaking In Tongues, which I encourage everyone to see.

Those who say, "Let a hundred languages bloom!" think they're ablaze with brotherhood. They're ablaze with nothing of the kind. A country with one unifying language that lets itself slip away to two or more is ablaze with nothing but poor housekeeping.

Really? Wow, I bet such pretty well-functioning countries as Canada, Bolivia, the Phillipines, Israel and India (among others) would love to learn they've been doing it wrong. Incidentally, I wonder if Barry knows that Hawaii, Samoa, Guam and Puerto Rico are officially bilingual. That must be why they're constantly on the verge of collapse.

By the way, among the almost 30 states where English is the ONLY official language? California and Alabama. Way to do that research, Barry.

Shakespeare may have turned the English language into cultural glory. Churchill turned that language into adrenalin arousing freedom's beleaguered and embattled forces to a civilization-saving victory. It may not seem as impressive. But English is now serving an even more important role. As glue.

Sure, Barry. Do us a favor and go eat some, ok?

Your Week in Terrible WND Quotes

...if you're going to describe them as "progressives," make sure you use the full term and not just part of it: "the Communist Progressive Labor Party." The pundits may not get it, but "truck-driving" middle America is beginning to understand.
Here's how the Clevelander who sold me a pizza put it: "In one year Obama has turned America into a communist nation."

- Christian Crusader Janet Porter, describing why it's so important Americans do something useful to cleanse the land of liberals, namely, a prayer rally.

[The Founders wrote] a Constitution for the material kingdom, based and founded on the Constitution of the spiritual kingdom – the Bible.

-Wacko Pat Boone, calling on God-fearing Americans to do the right thing and recognize that their true loyalty is to the Invisible Sky-Man, not their government.

How many times will we have to hear about some poor white person who... has to spend the rest of his life apologizing for something that had no ill-intent... but because it refers in some way to the black denomination, to the black people, all of a sudden it becomes the most disgusting thing ever heard...Nothing Harry Reid said could be called racist unless you enjoy feeling somehow that everybody is a racist. Black people enjoy the idea of considering everybody a racist... All the black people in America are waiting to hear you say anything about black people... It could even be a compliment like in this case with Harry Reid... it was more of an attack on white people and any racism they may have, but because it involved a reference to black people all of a sudden it became an attack on the black denomination of America... It's offensive to the whites by saying they're still bigots... That white people can't accept a truly black person. If anybody should be offended, whites should be offended. It's impossible to say anything where the word black is involved or the word Negro is involved... Black people say the most racist things everyday about white people, but they're never defensive about it. We just had an election where the white person was a war hero, 30 years in the Senate, the black person showed no record of accomplishment in any way... If you were a foreigner to this country, you would interpret this as racism against whites... It's impossible for a white person to stand a chance in America. How much do you have to accomplish to be recognized? Why can a black person who accomplished nothing vanquish a white person who's a war hero, who has a history of a lifetime of accomplishment? This is perverted, this is sick, this is deranged... This need that black people have to make you feel like you're a racist is a power trip... Black people should stop intimidating the whites. Give up the whole idea of racism unless you want to talk about white people are suffering from it, not blacks!

- Jackie Mason, Self-Proclaimed Ultimate Douche Jew, standing up for pissed off white octogenarians everywhere. BTW, Jackie, if you get mad at hearing about offended minorities, be happy that no one is still watching your act.

Obama's problem is that he decided that he wasn't elected as a President, he was elected as a King. And the will of the people means nothing to him because he's going to create a health care program that every poll shows is impossible to pass, because nobody wants it and the whole country is against it and the man who followed polls to get elected President suddenly doesn't care what the people think. Now this is both obnoxious and arrogant and disgusting. Because the truth of the matter is if I got you the job... if it was any other field... and all of a sudden I got you the job... what would people think?... All I'm asking for in return is a health care plan I can tolerate... All I'm asking you for is a health care plan I approve of... I got you the job and this one thing you can't do for me? You would say to yourself this is an ungrateful disgusting person. How can he defy me? ... All of a sudden he doesn't remember who elected him or what country he's in... You're supposed to represent the will of the people, especially the ones who got him the job!

- Mason again, apparently forgetting that the people that got Obama the job were Democrats.
If you liked those last two clips, check out Jackie's newest video slamming Obama's State of the Union speech (most of it is filled with clips of Jackie taking a nap. I think he thinks it's funny. Those of us who have spent time with elderly Jews know that, at best, there's only a 50-50 chance that the naps were for comedic effect and he didn't fall asleep while taping his show).

Tyranny of the Majority

Why do I keep carping on Christmas in the public square? I guess it's because I think that America benefits tremendously by keeping religion separate from government. There are middle grounds, such as trying to honor and include people's religious culture and heritage. Where things get dicey is where the culture of the majority is allowed to dominate others, or even push them out of the public view entirely. People with these viewpoints are the kind that get up in arms at suggestions that America is not a Christian country. They're also the same folks that feel entitled to dictate to Americans everywhere that Christian symbols and holidays, should be given exalted status and treatment over any others. A lot of times they will misrepresent our own history to do so, often shamelessly.

In my view, this is where such attitudes lead:

The Moldovan Orthodox Church on Wednesday blamed the local Jewish community for the recent rally in which a public menorah was torn down and a cross was put in its place.

During the December 13th incident, dozens of people led by an Orthodox priest smashed a menorah in Moldova's capital Chisinau, using hammers and iron bars to remove the candelabra during Hanukkah.

...the church said in a statement, "We believe that this unpleasant incident in the center of the capital could have been avoided if the menorah had been placed near a memorial for victims of the Holocaust."
The church said it opposed the form of the protest, and that it respects "the feelings and belief of other cults that are legally registered on the territory of the Republic of Moldova, and expects a similar attitude from their side," according to the report.
"At the same time," the statement continued, "we think it inappropriate to put a symbol of the Jewish cult in a public place connected to the history and faith of our people, especially because Chanukah is classified by the cult books of Judaism as a 'holiday of blessing' that symbolizes the victory of Jews over non-Jews."

There you have it. Christians taking back the public square, fully justified, no doubt, in their view that Moldova is a Christian nation. They even have the nerve to blame it on the Jews being provocative by not keeping their symbol in "the right place." Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this a slightly more aggressive version of what people on Fox News, World Net Daily and Stand For Christmas are calling for?

Let's be clear: I do not believe that most Christians in America are violent. But I do think that there is a danger in believing that numerical superiority translates to the right to exert/claim cultural dominance or control. The beauty of America is that it does not explicitly "belong" to any one group. I see and hear some Christians in the blogosphere and media who feel like America is uniquely "theirs" and who think that an aggressive form of cultural Christianity should be determining government policy and be trickling down to all sorts of everyday activities, be it advertising or education. I can see their perspective-- it's what they believe, after all-- but that doesn't mean I agree with it one bit.

Part of the dilemma is I think it is particularly hard for a majority group to understand how important issues of symbolism, protection and dignity are for minorities. Religious minorities in America benefit tremendously through maintaining the separation of church and state, and in ensuring that they are never made to be second-class citizens. Yes, it is possible for a state with an official religion to be benevolent towards minorities-- but that's not the same thing as a state with no official religion, with no religious preference, where ALL religious groups are on equal footing-- at least on paper. That is what is at stake.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For another perspective (and from a fellow Jew, no less), we can go to my old friend Idiot McGoo. Sorry, that's former-rabbi Idiot McGoo:

"If you can't stand the words Merry Christmas, you don't have a right to live on this earth, because that means that you're rejecting the whole idea of loving your fellow human being, of celebrating the most beautiful qualities of a person. The most beautiful qualities of a person are the qualities of Christmas."

Which qualities, exactly? Goodwill towards men?

WND's Newest Pet Jew

I don't know whether Jackie Mason was unavailable or Dennis Prager was too busy patting himself on the back, but apparently WND felt the need to get themselves another Jew to talk about how America is uber-great, we are totally a Christian nation, and would someone please go burn plant a giant Christmas tree on their lawn, please. Enter Mr. Barry Farber.

Barry first came across my radar back in October, when he announced, to no one in particular, that America may have been declining, but that it was still super-duper awesome:

Who, from professor to peasant, is able to name another country that ever amassed more power and abused it less than America? Or, amassed more wealth and distributed it more fairly? What other country was ever attacked, then rallied and destroyed the aggressors and, instead of the traditional rape and plunder, rewarded its attackers with rehabilitation and democracy? And what country ever won a war and wound up with less territory than when the war began? After spending much blood and treasure ejecting the Japanese from the Philippines, America gave the Philippines independence.

Wow, listening to Barry, you'd never know about America's dismal conduct in Latin America or, yes, Asia. (Funny how we gave the Philippines independence after WWII but kicked Spain out almost 40 years earlier-- what took so long, Barry?)

Without America, no democracy would have been possible anywhere. Surely that claim will make some want to gag, but, please, when you get your breath back, give us your scenario as to how democracy might have survived without America; bearing in mind the behavior of another empire that recently declined – namely, the Communist.

Got that? America is responsible for democracy even existing in the 21st century. You all owe us, big time.

Barry concluded this brilliant piece by telling the world they were so culturally bankrupt that if we disappeared they would pine even for our trashiest celebrities.

The following warning is offered respectfully to the world: You will miss us. Who will forge and give backbone to your NATOs to restrain aggressors? Who will lead the fight against the 12th-century passions of jihad? Mark my words – you will even miss our Britney Spears and our Paris Hilton. You don't have a history, you don't have a tradition, you don't have a hope, you don't have a clue of how to make acceptable conditions prevail over so much of the earth's surface without America.

So there, suckers.

With such a dramatic beginning, you can see how I wasn't expecting much from ol' Barry. But I misjudged him, because Barry soon decided that he really wasn't going to be able to out-America-is-awesome Dennis Prager, so he was going to need a new shtick: WND's friendliest Jew.

Wait, friendlier and more of a suck-up than even Monsieur Dennis? You be the judge:

In this business, there are phrase-makers and word-choosers. And most of us flit back and forth and do a little of each. A few paragraphs down from here a sentence will appear that sounds like a phrase made by a Jewish politician courting American Christian voters. It is nothing of the kind. Every word is carefully chosen. You don't have to be Jewish to write this, but it does help take the edge off.

Off to a great start...

Are you surprised Hitler's allies protected the Jews? Almost all of them did! Jews who managed to get into the Italian zone of occupation were protected. Unfortunately, the Italians only occupied the French Riviera and the western part of what was then Yugoslavia. The Japanese, believe it or not, had a pre-war plan to bring 1 million German Jews to safety in Japan. The outbreak of war limited the rescue to 50,000. They lived unmolested in Japan all through the war. Franco's Spain used its pro-German neutrality to save tens of thousands of Jewish lives.

Um, Barry, you're full of crap. While individual citizens of allied states may have protected Jews, many governments actively supported the Nazis' genocide. Vichy France was a German ally. It showed its loyalty by deporting Jews by the millions to certain death. Hungary, Croatia, Ukraine, Latvia, Estonia and Belarus all formed their own Waffen SS units to support the Nazis and serve as concentration camp guards. While Italy did protect Jews in some areas (particularly lands it had conquered) from being gassed, it also passed its own version of the Nuremburg Laws stripping them of rights and citizenship, deported some of its own Jewish citizens to death camps and even constructed a concentration camp, Risera di San Sabba, which killed an estimated 3,000 people, many of them Jews. To your credit, Japan did save a lot of Jews, as did Spain (though, as you said, it was neutral, not an ally, so I'm not sure how this proves your thesis).

Now, we're almost down to the line that sounds like Jewish sucking-up to Christians. You're free to call it that – but I dare you to deny its validity.

Oh goody gumdrops, can't wait.

We Jews have had many enemies and many friends. But the best friend the Jew has ever had in 5,000 years of history is the American Christian. Here, now, is "the line": If it weren't for the American Christian, there would be no state of Israel and no Jew alive, except those who successfully masqueraded as something else.

Based ON WHAT?

What gives me the right to say that? America was the "swing vote" that won World War II. When America entered the war, Britain and the Soviet Union were two elephants dangling over a cliff with their tails tied to the same daisy. America's un-bomb-able industrial complex, the Arsenal of Democracy, supplied and energized the effort of our embattled allies. America's entry against Germany and Japan turned tired blood into sparkling burgundy.

The American military was 97 percent non-Jewish, because the American population was 97 percent non-Jewish. If all those Christian American men had not gone uncomplainingly to fight Hitler, the Jews of Kansas City and everyplace else would have suffered the fate of the Jews of Warsaw, Prague, Budapest, Zagreb; you get it.

Let's backtrack. Barry is essentially saying the following:

A- If America hadn't entered the war that the Nazis would have won.
B- America's population is overwhelmingly Christian.
C- Therefore, without American Christians, no Jews would exist.

The problem with this is that the central premise is flawed. Barry, unsurprisingly, credits America with "turning the tide." To a large degree, this is uncontested by historians. However that doesn't mean that without America the Allies would have necessarily lost. Furthermore, the fact that America is mostly Christian does not mean that Christianity or Christian identity were the primary motivators driving Americans-- or anyone else, for that matter-- to fight in WWII. Correlation is not causation. You might as well say, "Without American men, no Jews would exist," or, "without American rifles or planes (or boats!), no Jews would exist." (That would have the bonus of actually make slightly more sense.)

Barry is selecting a totally random factoid from history and extrapolating it so far it loses any meaning or context. It's also particularly bone-headed given that before (and after) World War Two, you still had plenty of Christian idiots trying to discriminate against Jews, in part based on their religious beliefs (Jews couldn't be citizens in many of the original 13 colonies, for instance). American Christianity's views on Jews have been a double-edged sword. On balance, Christians in America have treated us fairly well-- but that doesn't mean that everything's been a bed of roses, or that we specifically have Christianity to thank for improving Christian-Jewish relations.

Occasionally, a Jewish member of my audience will challenge me and say, "Wait a minute. Those American soldiers didn't go to war to save the Jews." I didn't say they did. However, in fighting for America, American Christians made possible the state of Israel and Jewish survival!

... Like every other member of the Allied coalition?

Merry Christmas!

You're a moron.

Last but still stupid, Barry's newest cup o'dreck.

It's been half a century since Jewish organizations started trying to ban Christmas carols in classrooms and nativity displays of model shepherds and oriental kings on the courthouse lawn. And I still get the same urge I got then to tell them to throw away their wet blanket and let Christmas be.

Oh good, an opinion, how refreshingly original.

Short version of boring anecdote: Barry grew up as the only Jewish kid in a small town in North Carolina. He was regularly tasked with singing the Latin solo in Ave Maria. He thinks this was totally awesome.

It didn't hurt a bit. Not one of us forfeited a smidgen of our own faith. We Jewish kids in all the other schools in town met and caucused weekly at Hebrew school, and none of us felt alienated or diminished by the exercise joining our Christian friends and neighbors at the happiest moment of their religious year.

Mazel Tov, Barry, you felt included instead of included. I'm happy for you. But the central argument is that celebrating the holiday should be a private matter for people to do in a more appropriate context, like home or church, not pushing it into the public square. Whether you personally get bothered or not is beyond the point.

There's no record of any Jewish child in our community switching creeds due to Hanukkah-shame.

Also irrelevant. Two for two!

The ones trying to protect Jewish children from Christmas use words like "isolation" and "humiliation" to describe the condition of the Jewish child "subjected" to celebrating Christians. As my immigrant grandparents would have phrased it as they were learning English, "On me, they shouldn't depend."

Wow, Yiddish grandparent humor. How fresh. Here, let me try: Your argument's so facockta it makes my kop plotz.

Christmas to a Jewish boy in public school in North Carolina back then was fragrant, dreamy, enticing, beautiful and enviable in the pleasant sense. There was no feeling of anything being forced down our throats, but rather of something exceedingly pleasant being offered to our lips, nostrils and hearts. We didn't feel like tolerated onlookers. We felt like honored guests at a spiritual Super Bowl of our friends and neighbors.

And it's great that your experience in Nowheresville was so pleasant, Barry, but it's like having a black guy say that he didn't mind attending a segregated school. Schools should not be endorsing a religious point of view. Neither should the government. Culture is something else-- but if we're talking culture, we need to include other cultures as well besides just the majority. And no matter how fuzzy Barry may feel about his North Carolina Christmases, the people I see on Fox and over at Stand for Christmas don't seem like they want to invite Jews or others to be "honored guests" at an inclusive holiday for all. They seem like angry cultural autocrats that want things to be their way or the highway.

Forgive me if that doesn't make me feel all that honored.

Stupid Youtube videos

First, a real piece of dreck from the Westboro Baptist Church. The most obnoxious thing about this first one isn't the antisemitism, it's the catchiness. I think they may have just hit on a way to actually spread their message beyond their own genepool. Scary.





But the really sad thing? This isn't that different from Former-Rabbi-Schmuckles' idiotic, paranoid and race-baiting rant:


Highlights:

"Pretty soon they're going to be hiding in basements worried that people are going to be killing them for being Christian."

"Black people were persecuted before, so now everybody's nervous, if you hire a black person you have to just be happy he shows up."

"The only person that can't get affirmative action is a Jew... If a Jew wants to become a doctor he has to have a 98.9 average to get into a medical school... but because of affirmative action, if you're Hispanic, 28, close enough. If you're black, 2, you're a doctor."

Frankly, these two hateful old coots deserve each other.

Hat-tip: Jewlicious.

Jackie Mason Still a Crank

I saw Jackie Mason in "concert" once with my mother and some elderly relatives. I was enjoying myself until he started making racist jokes about Puerto Ricans (being from the West Coast, I've not only never met a Puerto Rican, I don't even know what the stereotypes about them are supposed to be). At that point I took a look around the concert hall and realized that most of the people in the audience were wearing yarmulkes, black hats, and Linda Richmond hair. That was when I started getting really creeped out. The next creepy moment came when my great-aunt leaped out of her chair and started shrieking about Puerto Ricans along with Jackie. I slunk into my seat and looked for an escape hatch.

Anyway, over the years Jackie's schtick has largely remained the same (Gentiles like beer! Jews like cake!), but he seems to have gotten increasingly political. Needless to say, our views don't seem to match much. In addition to saying delirious things like "the current President has done more for minorities than any President since Johnson" and that "Nobody in America including the Jews themselves has worked harder than Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell to support the state of Israel."

Mason's most recent book, Schmucks (don't be fooled, it's not an autobiography), has a whole "chapter" (two whole pages, and this is with a co-author and who knows how many ghostwriters) devoted to Reform Jews, who the former Orthodox rabbi apparently feels are "getting their noses done and changing their names everyday to appear more Gentile." Yeah, Jackie, because so many people are still changing their names these days. I'm pretty sure most of the name changing was over and done with oh, 80 years ago. But way to use relevant topics.

Jackie's got other fresh observations, too. He notices that Reform Jews are giving their kids weird first names too, like Tiffany, Ashley and Rex, oh the shanda. I'm no fan of a name that conjurs up a Barbie doll, but things could always be worse, Jackie. It's not like Yerucham, Nimrod or Chanania are such prizes. Or, say, Jyll.

Mason continues with the Reform Jews and nose-jobs patter, adding that they also seem to like tanning beds so they can brag about how people "mistake them for Greeks, Italians or other Mediterranean peoples." Yeah, that's clearly the provenance of Reform Jews. That would be news to my olive-skinned great-grandfather from Poland. And the timing on these, wow. Nose job jokes? No one's ever heard one of those before. Where do you get your ideas. Presumably it involves a time machine.

Why so much ire? Oh, no reason. I just came across a semi-recent Video Blog of his from November where he goes after that freshest of targets, France.

Money quote: "The French as a people are just miserable, nauseous, obnoxious, hateful and contemptuous people. That's the perfect description for all the people in France."

Funny, I thought that was the perfect description for Jackie Mason.

Something bit David Mamet in the butt

And I swear, it wasn't me.

David Mamet, perhaps best known for his body of "brilliant" (if you're a drama geek, or alternately, "excruciating", if you're me) plays and for once placing third in a "Wolf Blitzer face-stubble-look-alike-contest", is in the news. See, he's written a book about Jews and anti-Semitism. Wait, a Jewish celebrity has an opinion about Jews? And people who don't LIKE Jews? And why some Jews don't like themselves?

Why, that's positively Revo-freakin-lutionary!

Mamet's book is getting a fair amount of attention for the book, and much of it doesn't seem very complimentary. Apparently part of the controversy revolves around the fact that a lot of the people reading and critiquing it don't think Mamet is as brilliant or insightful as he does.

Mamet confronts what he sees as an insidious predilection among some Jews to seek truth and meaning anywhere–in other religions, in political movements, in mindless entertainment–but in Judaism itself.

An interesting premise, but what does Mamet actually do with this? A couple of editorial blurbs on Amazon seem to hint at some basic stylistic problems- first, Mamet doesn't seem very interested in using sources:

"[Mamet] sets his sights on both anti-Semites and apostate Jews, whom he refers to as "the Wicked Sons." Mamet marshals his passion and mastery of language to argue that only religious observance is an authentic, non-self-hating expression of Judaism. Organizing that argument coherently, however, doesn't seem to be a priority, as he moves from discussions of the State of Israel to excoriations of assimilated Jews and contemporary culture and back with no apparent order. The tone is that of the condescending expert: alternately Talmudic scholar, academic, psychoanalyst and anthropologist. But nowhere is Mamet's expertise proven; he provides no source materials to back up his pronouncements on everything from Santa Claus to gun control to religious observance. The implication of this bombastic text seems to be that anyone who disagrees is a coward, an anti-Semite or a self-hating Jew."-Publishers Weekly

Frankly, this just sounds downright obnoxious, and very much in keeping with the partisan polemic with which we've become familiar with in the past 20-plus years regarding political issues. Is Mamet trying to play the part of a counter-counter-culture, Jewish, Michael Moore?

Booklist is a little kinder-

[Mamet's] repeated allusions to the Bible and other literary sources are strained, and he paints with too broad a brush ("the world hates Jews"). If one can cut through the fog and tolerate his generalizations, it is evident that Mamet is on to something, particularly in his views on the apparent increase in Jewish disdain for and rejection of their own culture. He ties Jewish self-hatred to anti-Semitism, asserting that the victims eventually wonder if they somehow "deserve" the opprobrium heaped on them. So called "emancipated" Jews may try to cleanse themselves of racial taint by disparaging "Jewish" traits. Of course, Mamet finds the worst manifestations of this self-hatred in those Jews who seem to delight in attacking the very existence of Israel. In Mamet's view, they absurdly condemn Jewish passivity during the Holocaust and condemn Jewish aggressiveness in defending the State of Israel. This isn't an easy book to read, and it will likely outrage many Jews and non-Jews, but Mamet's blunt, passionate assertions have to be seriously considered."

Mamet may indeed have a point, but the development he's describing is nothing new- any student of Jewish history is already well-aware of it. Self-hatred is neither new, nor are studies of it as a phenomenon. I have to wonder how Mamet's analysis is supposed to be terribly innovative, particularly if it's primarily full of personal observations, generalizations, and polemics?

On the issue of observance, incidentally, Mamet belongs to a trans-denominational shul in LA, that, from its brochure, basically seems to lie somewhere between Reform and Conservative in practice, and Recon-ish in ideology (except on the God part). Mamet's rabbi has some thoughts on Wicked Son:

When [Mamet and I] talk in private conversation, he bursts out with a heart full of thoughts and feelings about what to do and what must be done. He is one of those too few non-Orthodox Jews who has seen into the palace: Torah channeling the divine mind, traditions as vessels for divine light, the people Israel together anchoring and being transformed by that light. He looks around at other parts of his life and sees people who are not superficial; they are deep and searching and questing, but their connection with Judaism is so painfully shallow. And some are smug that their connection to the transformative dimension is so shallow. They are so sure they don’t need it. He and I commiserate, plan, and hope.

... Faustus is the false, self-deluding penitent. The Magus asks question and makes comments—subtle, lacerating comments. In The Wicked Son, the spiritual voice of the Magus becomes the lacerating, barely disguised rage of a Chasidic Mussar teacher who knows that his student is just so full of shit but does not have to be. Okay, in both books Mamet is talking to himself. He is helping all of us talk to ourselves. Read the play and the book at your risk of being exposed to yourself.

Mamet can’t stand complacent bull-shitters and Jews who content themselves with being superficial Jews. He would like to kick their asses as a way of bringing their souls to consciousness, but he wrote The Wicked Son instead.

OK, so he's passionate. I can understand that. But you can't ass-kick people into going to shul. And it really is a two-way street- Rabbi Finley, who was ordained by the Reform movement, had this to say in a 2003 panel, recorded for posterity on Luke Ford (it takes a bit of scrolling down to find)-

Why have American Jews left Judaism in such overwhelming numbers? Rabbi Finley (RF) says it is as though Hebrew schools were run by anti-Semittes. Jews go to them, get Bar Mitzvahed, and learned to hate Judaism. About 50% of American Jews intermarry and about 70% of them apostasize.
We need to rework the way we present Judaism. "Business as usual is not working."

RF: "I was Bar Mitvahed at the Compton Community Center and confirmed at Temple Beth Shalom in Long Beach. That was still a time when a Jew could be shamed into being Jewish. It was a shame if one intermarried.

"Starting in the 1970s, people began looking for meaning and relevance and the Judaism they saw did not meet their needs. Synagogues are not well-run. Things don't address them. Once the claim of continuity and tradition is gone, people are going to the place that will spiritually benefit them the most.

"I was asked to do a board retreat at a local Reform synagogue. I asked them, 'If someone walked into your synagogue Friday night, what would make them want to come back?' And they looked at each other and said, 'Absolutely nothing.'

"So much of my vision that has transformed me as a person comes from the fact that I've been around Orthodox Jews. I was a friend and student of Rabbi Danny Landes. I met Rabbi Yitz Greenberg. Yitzhok Adlerstein. I learned a love of Torah that I had never known growing up at a Conservative synagogue or at Reform rabbinical school. I met people who were ecstatically in love with Torah. They brought me into an ecstatic love of Torah.
"I went to the non-Orthodox institutions in which I was working and that wasn't there. When I was a student rabbi in Irvine, just before meeting my wife Meirav, it was hard for me to be in the yeshiva world [without wanting to join it]. I davened twice a day at the Library Minyan at Beth Am (C). I no longer wanted to be a Reform rabbi.

While I can appreciate Mamet's enthusiasm (though not his judgmental attitude), I really don't see how beating alienated Jews over the head (and trying to revert back to the "shame" model) has any real potential to be productive. There's a place to be critical and a place to issue challenges, but does Mamet offer the "Wicked Sons" any positive reason to be Jewish? Or does he simply attack them for descisions he disagrees with?

Some have taken Mamet to task for the book's incredible heavy-handedness. Sanford Pinsker notes,

David Mamet is a more-than-credible writer, but I can easily imagine the subjects of his withering criticism shouting back at him, “Who died and made you king (or perhaps God)?” One could remind them that Mamet belongs to a prophetic tradition given to launching exactly such jeremiads to backsliders. But that, of course, would require explaining who the prophets were and what a jeremiad is.

Pinsker also compares Mamet to his observant grandfather (somewhat predictably, not in a particularly kindly way):

I could have imagined many of this tome’s shrill paragraphs emanating from my very Orthodox grandfather, a man who never passed up the opportunity to lambaste anybody in the family who ate treyf, drove on Shabbos, or spoke too much English. And that was only the beginning, for Grandfather was aware, even if he could not have expressed it exactly this way, that America stood for freedom and Judaism stood for the fences of Law.

And ironically enough, Pinsker's zaydeh, I'm sure, would have lumped Mamet in with all the rest of us apikorisim as "Wicked Sons". Mamet can say what he wants, but personally, my ire-level always becomes a little more elevated when someone plays the holier-than-thou card- and they really aren't as great as they think they are. Mamet is observant, but certainly not frum. He doesn't seem to be advocating frumkeit as a matter of course, but the suggestion that he's become some sort of prophet or authority who can dictate with such certainty the myriad problems with American Jewry (and, conveniently, lay most of the blame at the feet of apathetic, or worse, self-hating, individuals rather than pointing out the many substantial organizational and leadership issues which ALSO contribute to this process) is just plain arrogant. Which, again, goes back to the earlier question- what does Mamet expect to accomplish with this? Does he actually believe that a whole generation of Jews who told Zaydeh to get bent is going to turn tail and run back to shul because the great HaRav Mamet, shlita, issued a proclamation from his holy pew? Get real.

A few more responses:

- Cynthia Ozick really hated Mamet's book, and bashes him for not doing basic research (like finding out what an apikoros actually is, or using the "Jewish race" terms that Pinsker noted), though she gives him credit for identifying Jewish anti-Zionism that often is really a screen for something far more insidious and troubling.

Apostasy, Mamet is persuaded, can actually be cured. How? By diligent ritual observance and devotion to Torah learning, until the apostate finds that "the habit of investigation, of study, of curiosity, has supplanted what he will now be able to recognize was the habit of apostasy." The italics are touching. Does Mamet imagine that sending Noam Chomsky, say, or Norman Finkelstein or Judith Butler or Tony Judt to yeshiva will undo their practiced enmities?

Zing!

Novick concludes:

""The Wicked Son" is a weakly argued work in the service of a pair of powerful indictments. The first points to an intractability: the persistence of anti-Semitism from generation to generation, a kind of cross-gender mental hemophilia endemic to the brain that carries and transmits it. The second charge is lodged against anti-Semitism's Jewish accomplices, nowadays noisome with peace-and-justice sloganeering and often mistakenly accused of self-hate. But the craven motives that spur Mamet's inauspiciously named "race treason" are no different from Nicholas Donin's 13th century opportunism. All are equally rooted in self-promoting callousness, servile ingratiation and other stigmata of excessive self-love.""

In other words, Mamet may be somewhat accurate in describing what he's seeing, but that still doesn't mean he gets the causes or motivations right- which makes the problem all the harder to solve, particularly if your method of engaging with these already alienated people is to insult and abuse them.

- In the Forward, Lawrence Bush says Mamet is little more than a shrill malcontent (he says "heckler"), and accuses him of exhibiting some similar hatred and disgust for his "Wicked" subjects as he charges they show towards Judaism. "Weirdly, this most modern of playwrights and film directors writes like one of the pioneering Zionist theorists of the late 19th-century. He repeatedly describes Jews as a “race”; he romanticizes Judaism as a “six-thousand-year-old tradition”; he deplores his people’s attraction to “the Irresistible Other”; he is revolted by the very Jews whom he seeks to redeem." Bush also lambasts Mamet for having no real program or agenda, just a laundry-list of complaints, with plentiful straw-men and overgeneralizations to round it out :

"Mamet offers no distillations of Jewish philosophy or religious insight to spark the interest of assimilated Jews. Belonging, not believing or behaving, is the only aspect of Jewish identity to which Mamet truly testifies (“There’s no place like home”). Nor is there much Jewish worldliness in these essays. He says nothing about Jewish outreach-to-the-intermarried programs, about the upsurge of a new bohemian Jewish culture, about creative innovations in Jewish religious practice, about any of the numerous programs that have sought to release Jewish life from the forces of fossilization. Mamet simply does not believe in innovation: Jewish “self-loathing,” he writes, “will not be overcome by revelation…. Only habit will suffice.”"

Hmm, this doesn't seem to jive too well with Mamet's shul, which describes itself as incorporating and combining "Reform and Recon views of evolutionary halakha", "Conservative balance between tradition and change", "Orthodox love of God and Torah, devotion to study and observance," and even "a Chassidic feel". Question- since when has it been Reform habit to sing Hasidic songs and throw farbrengens? What is that, 1960s? Egad, the dust of time, it's so thick! My asthma!

- Jewlicious takes a middle-ground: "it strikes me as misguided to equate Jewish religious observance with feelings of Jewish national solidarity. Plenty of observant Jews are anti-Zionist or self-hating, and plenty of secular Jews (well, me, for one) reject nostalgic, shtetl Judaism, yet care deeply about the survival of the Jewish nation... But whenever I read about Jews who fit the general idea of what Mamet’s up against, I wonder, why bother? If many Jews, including some of the brighter among us, do not see Judaism as national, worth fighting for, and so on, why not just let it be?"

Which is basically where I fall in this discussion- People will ultimately vote with their feets and their hearts. The interested, even tangentially-interested, should be encouraged as much as possible, and the truly disinterested should still be loved and welcomed- the model should be the Thanksgiving dinner table (or Passover, if you like, to keep with Mamet's theme)- you don't have to agree with everyone or even do everything the exact same way, and maybe some people won't even show up- but the invitation should be there. You don't excoriate the Wicked Son, you teach him.

On Passover we open doors for guests, even invisible ones. I just don't see that what Mamet is doing here is going to encourage anyone to drop by.