Richard Allen, a member of the JCC, is peddling small-minded paranoia in calling the Other Israel Film Festival a participant in the boycott, divestment and sanctions (“BDS”) movement and has called on the board to McCarthyize their community.
Allen is joined by Democratic consultant Hank Sheinkopf, who told the paper, “At this time when Israel’s very life may be at stake it’s especially important not to patronize anyone who doesn’t stand with the State of Israel. … Stop claiming you are a Jewish community center, because there is no place there for centrist people.”
This is preposterous. The hysteria behind such a claim would be funny if the merits of this case weren’t downright offensive. Liberal-minded members of the community need to put this laughable accusation where it belongs: the garbage bin. The JCC in Manhattan, under the leadership of Rabbi Joy Levitt, is one of — if not the — most pluralistic institutions in the New York Jewish community. It hosts thoughtful, intelligent, quality programs satisfying so much of the communal spectrum.
On the same night, the welcoming rooms of that building hosted a Shabbat dinner of the Other Israel Film Festival (no event of which Mr. Allen ever attended) and the annual dinner of CAMERA. At the OIFF dinner, two Israeli Arab TV stars spoke eloquently against efforts like Mr. Allen’s — from the Palestinian side. The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel contacted all the filmmakers, producers and actors flying in from Israel to boycott the Other Israel Film Festival. Panelist Mira Awad, Arab pop singer-songwriter, answered the question about why she still came, and she did so with inspirational personal authority:
This morning Simon Greer, head of Jewish FundS for Justice, delivered 10,000 signatures and a giant pink slip to Fox News’ corporate headquarters in New York calling for Glenn Beck to be fired. Beck reneged on a pledge against twisting Holocaust history to his political ends, which was originally personally signed and sent to Greer after JFSJ brought fourteen representatives of Jewish organizations to meet with Beck’s superiours..
When Beck then ran a series called “The Puppet Master,” charging Jewish mega-philanthropist George Soros with complicity with killing other Jews during the Holocaust (despite the fact that he was a child at the time). The ADL’s Abe Foxman stepped in to condemn the language: “For a political commentator or entertainer to have the audacity to say, there’s a Jewish boy sending Jews to death camps, that’s horrific. It’s totally off limits and over the top.” (Then of course Foxman demurred and backtracked because Beck says nice things about Israel.) Of course, this was all an excuse to demonize Soros as one of the largest funders of progressive causes in America and around the world. Which is, obviously, Beck’s real target: social justice.
At today’s impromptu press conference outside the offices of News Corp., Greer and company brought the 10,000 names and unveiled Beck’s top ten most disturbing quotes of 2010 (below). Video of the press conference to come. More »
Palestinians are hurt frequently in unarmed protests, even killed. But it took Israeli Jewish activists to get one tragic death any Western attention or the IDF’s admission of fault.
Jawaher Abu Rahmah, a 36-year-old kindergarten teacher from the West Bank village of Bil’in, died after inhaling tear gas shot by IDF soldiers trying to disperse a weekly protest. Her brother was killed two years ago after being hit by a tear gas canister to the chest. The family’s account and that of dozens of witnesses were quickly dismissed by the IDF through off-the-record tips to sympathetic blogs, and without a formal investigation.
Dogged Israeli activists have forced right-wing blogger, news media and the IDF to walk back misinformation aimed to exonerate the IDF, like whether Abu Rahmah even attended the protest, whether she participated, and (incredulously) whether she died quietly of cancer. The activists chronicling their work through the portal +972 Magazine deserve the bulk of the credit for being at the protest, debunking the rumors started by the IDF, and taking on the right-wing conspiracy machine.
Since the earliest vouchings of IDF’s innocence have proved hollow, the Israel-can-do-no-wrong voices have switched to a new line: “the Israelis killed her, so what?” Christian Zionist magazine Israel Today opined, “The point is that even if Abu Rahma died from inhaling tear gas, it is a non-story.”
Quite the contrary. Even while losing the proxy war on Abu Rahmah’s death, Israel boosters seem to miss the greater points: More »
Today the Fox published an oped in the JTA calling on us to fight anti-Muslim bigotry. I don’t know if this is an honest change of heart, or just too little too late in the wake of his opposition to the Cordoba House.
Reading the statement, I could not help thinking that the distinction he wants to make between “good” Islam and “bad” Islam parallels the common distinction between Jews and Zionists, a distinction which is often read as disingenuous and antisemitic.
So, will the ADL go back to its mission fighting bigotry rather than acting as a shill for Israel (see the flap over the Armenian Genocide), or is the Fox still trying to play both sides?
My rabbi made a bold move during his d’var Torah on the first day of Rosh Hashanah services this year. After a brief word on Park 51 earlier in the service, in which he condemned the bigoted opposition in the strongest terms I could have imagined, I wasn’t expecting too much more fire and brimstone, especially on Israel-Palestine. And he looked sort of nervous to me – who wouldn’t, facing such a large crowd (this is Rosh Hashanah, mind you, so we’re talking every Jew in town) that was by and large far more conservative than you. Yet he called for an end to the Gaza blockade and asked congregants to write a letter to Netanyahu’s office urging him to fully engage in the peace talks and bring home results. Strong stuff.
Nine years after the attacks of 9/11, I want to stop and think about framing. How we frame conflicts, both in our mind and externally, has a lot to do with more concrete things like foreign policy, or the nature of the domestic discourse on an issue. 9/11 was an attack on the core of Americanism, and not only because of the physical spectacle of the WTC being leveled by a bunch of reclusive angry dudes. It represents the clash of two worldviews – an American constitutionalist perspective in which personal freedom is of the highest importance, and a religious fundamentalist one (which religion it is is completely irrelevant) in which those who think wrong, believe wrong, act wrong, are to be punished by those who know better. It’s disgusting no matter who it comes from.
In that bin Laden most likely knew what the U.S.’ response to 9/11 would be (“We have raced to Afghanistan and Iraq, and more recently to Yemen and Somalia; we have created a swollen national security apparatus; and we are so absorbed in our own fury and so oblivious to our enemy’s intentions that we inflate the building of an Islamic center in Lower Manhattan into a national debate and watch, helpless, while a minister in Florida outrages even our friends in the Islamic world by threatening to burn copies of the Koran,” says Ted Koppel), he made a masterful calculation in goading us into it. But I can’t help but think that he also gave us the greatest opportunity ever to definitively rise above the war-on-terror paradigm. It’s not too late to change course and stop trampling on the mangled remains of the constitutional freedoms (see above links, courtesy of Koppel) bin Laden sought to demonstrate the inferiority of, an effort for which we’ve done far more than he ever could have. This would take a reframing at the national level, something Obama did a bit of in his Cairo speech, but, more importantly, it would also take people of conscience standing up to bigotry at every level. Park 51 is the starkest example we’ve seen so far that this society has yet to move past the paralyzing ethos of American vs. un-American. Or, in simpler terms, a lot of people in this country are still racist.
And so, G()d’s children are still drowning. And until we end the war on terror abroad and the war on Islam at home, and until we, as my rabbi urged, truly walk in the other’s shoes and know their pain as we do our own, the water rises higher. May the memories of the 3000 innocents who died on 9/11, and the thousands more who have died since in Afghanistan, Iraq, Gaza, and more, not be forgotten.
This week brought with it more attempts to vilify Women of the Wall and protect the Western Wall as accessible for ultra-Orthodox prayer exclusively. The Jerusalem Police recommended this week that the Ministry of Justice press charges against Anat Hoffman for the felony of “gravely obstructing a police officer in the performance of his duties”, in regards to her July arrest while holding a Torah at the Western Wall. The sentence for such a conviction is up to 3 years in prison. Members and supporters of Women of the Wall in Israel and abroad stand behind Hoffman, and have been busy sending hundreds of letters and pictures of women holding the Torah to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Head of the Opposition Tzipi Livni, Chairman of the Jewish Agency Natan Sharansky, and Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz, the rabbi in charge of the holy places. In these letters, women from all over the world ask Israeli leaders, “How is it that as Jewish women, we are free in Berlin, in Rome, and in Chicago, while in Jerusalem it is illegal and profane for us to read from the Torah?” Supporters are encouraged to continue to send letters and pictures from the website, womenofthewall.org.il/solidarity/take-a-stand, conveying a clear message to Israel’s leaders that Women of the Wall will not be intimidated or silenced.
In response to Women of the Wall’s twenty year battle to read Torah on the women’s side of the Western Wall, Rabbi Rabinowitz issued a new regulation, giving him sole and complete control over who is permitted to enter the Western Wall Plaza with a Torah. This new dictatorial procedure extends the blockade against entering to the holy site with a Torah to not only women, but also men who might be determined unfit to carry a Torah by the extremist Rabinowitz. Adv. Nira Azriel is preparing a statement on behalf of Women of the Wall to the authorities regarding the unreasonable strictness of the new regulations, which promise to worsen conditions for women even further.
Around the country, yesterday, many cheered and many booed as Chief US District Judge Vaughn Walker declared Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage in California, as unconstitutional and in contradiction of the due process clause.
While a seeming majority of US Jews are clearly supportive of overturning the ballot proposition, known in many circles in California as “Prop H8,” the Orthodox Union made this bizarre statement, according to the JTA:
“In addition to our religious values — which we do not seek to impose on anyone — we fear legal recognition of same-sex ‘marriage’ poses a grave threat to the fundamental civil right of religious freedom.
“Forcing a choice between faith and the law benefits no one,” it added, concluding that the OU looked forward to the appeals process.
In what world does the OU live? Apparently one where they will be forced by US law to officiate at same-sex marriages? Yes, that’s right, here in America practices and beliefs are forced upon religious organizations all the time. That’s why every synagogue has to have a nativity scene or a giant set of Ten Commandment plaques…
The full statement, which can be read here, goes on to say:
Already, in states with same-sex civil unions and similar laws, religious institutions, including churches, social service providers and youth groups have been penalized by authorities for their beliefs. Forcing a choice between faith and the law benefits no one.
We look forward to the appeals process which will bring these critical issues to America’s highest courts.
Oh! Now I get it! They are against being told what to do or believe because it impedes the religious freedoms of a sliver of a tiny minority population in the US (which I really don’t understand how their freedoms are impeded at all)… What they are NOT against is taking away the constitutional rights of at least 10% of the US population who have been relegated to second-class citizen status and forced to stand by as the sacred institution of marriage is maintained for adulterers and wife-beaters… Good ol’ fashioned sense and reasoning from the OU.
The ADL’s Abe Foxman now has a dedicated parody Twitter account, Foxmanides, sparked by the latest hypocrisy from the American Jewish establishment’s flagship org. For if nonprofits were naval vessels, then the Anti-Defamation League would be our aircraft carrier: headed by a Holocaust survivor, a key Jewish player in civil rights battles of yester yore, and one of few household names in Jewish acronym alphabet soup. Only Elie Weisel is more powerful (let’s call him our Death Star).
Foxmanides on Twitter begs some consistency from the man purportedly voicing anti-bigotted conscience. Top tweets:
Ceding our perennial demand that Palestinians remove anti-Semitism from their school textbooks. Their anguish entitles them to bigotry.
@BernieMadoff Need a Presidential pardon? DM me your price. Over a mil and we’ll throw in a benefit dinner. Fish or steak?
@OliverStone I want a worldwide telecast w/you on your knees screaming “JEWS HAVE NO POWER” or no dice. And I want you dressed as a chicken.
Oh wait, Israel’s friends with Turkey again? Armenian geno-wha?
The joke’s on Abe because he’s shocked at the blowback. He and his are losing moral authority, especially among the younger folks. I’m sure he has little clue that his reticence against consistently fighting bigotry (instead of selectively) is entrenching the ADL’s reputation as prejudiced by omission if not commission. We would be hard pressed to justify anti-Semitism if it were delivered in a “nuanced” press release trumpeting “sensitivity.” Oh wait, that was just done.
Let us rewrite the ADL’s anti-mosque statement with “the Jewish right to self-determination in their historic homeland” instead of “Islamic center” and “colonization of the Middle East” as “9/11″. Let it culminate as theirs did in the final paragraph: “It’s not about rights, it’s about what is right.” Meaning, the Jews have a right to build their state, but not in the Middle East, where sensitivities are raw. I doubt Foxman would reply to such with nuance.
Regardless, Foxmanides has been unleashed. Even The Onion knows no safety now:
Now, you could even argue whether being a Muslim is actually a religion, or is it a nationality, way of life, cult whatever you want to call it.
…Now, you know, I’m all about freedom of religion. I value the First Amendment as much as I value the Second Amendment as much as I value the Tenth Amendment and on and on and on. But you cross the line when they try to start bringing Sharia Law here to the state of Tennessee — to the United States. We live under our Constitution and they live under our Constitution.
Someone should tell him what those Jews have been doing in their yeshivas in America all these years and then get him on the record about that.
Peter Beinart is still on his (incredibly polite but) hard-hitting crusade against the Jewish establishment’s lockstep on Israel. First on the NY Review of Books, then bloggingheads.tv, now NPR with Brooke Gladstone. In this 12-minute clip, he politely brushes aside the “self-perpetuating victimization” of Steven Rosen, a 23-year AIPAC senior staffer, and the charge of being anti-Israel for criticizing the Jewish state. Full transcript at NPR, but worth listening to all 12 minutes.
Attentive as always to the sentiment of my peers who obsess less about this issue than I do, the past weekend’s flotilla events have only confirmed what Peter Beinart wrote. His words confirm what I and others on Jewschool have long prophesied: young Jews are refusing “to check their liberalism” at Israel’s door.
All week, the reticence of my peers — actively engaged Jews in their 20s and 30s — to have “the Israel conversation” with me has been collapsing. Amazingly, friends who long avoided it. The sudden burst of awareness about Israel’s prohibition of cooking ingredients, toys and minor life amenities in Gaza has undermined sympathy for confroting even rebar-wielding provacateurs. Israel’s international disregard sours in their mouths. The severity of Israel’s recent behavior has shaken so many loose from the inhibitions to say openly and angrily, “What the fuck? How could Israel do that?”
“This has given me so much guilt. What is it about this that is different from what normally goes on there?” asked one friend over brunch.
“It’s like Israel tries to solve every problem with the military,” mourned another friend the night before. An organizer by profession, she smartly asked, “Where can we put political pressure to make this stop?”
“I am giving up on Israel. They can’t ask me to defend this policy,” said another the day before that. More »
I’m writing this post because Peter Beinart took my song and dance of the past five years and dropped it like a non-existant Israeli nuke on the Ahmadinejad-like belligerence of the Jewish establishment. He said what I say, and I’m happy to watch its effects burn across the intertubes. Amen, hallelujah, selah.
So instead and speaking of establishment types, the Jewish National Fund is wading to suppliment The David Project and AIPAC on Campus as protectors of Jewish college students’ fragile links to Israel: “Moms – Are Your Arming Your Children?” The solicitation raises money for high school Israel advocacy training.
Let me get this straight: the land-holding authority of Israel, ostensibly marketed in the Diaspora as a guardian of Israeli environmentalism (hyuk), has a high school advocacy program? Why? First, this is obvious mission creep. The JNF offers no core competancy to the field of education or advocacy. Second, this program is horribly redundant. As if every other federation and major Jewish youth group doesn’t already have campus-focused activism training.
Indeed, this is what Peter Beinart wrote about: the community’s “don’t question Israel” message so poorly prepared young Jews for the reality of the conflict that their heads explode when they encounter the Palestinian side. Despite anti-Semitism on the left and real threats of Ahmadinejad, there is yet a core of blame to the Israeli-Palestinian that lies with Israel, Jews and American support. This core of truth, small as the right-wing thinks it is, so disrupts the spoon-fed comfort with the occupation that the result is ingrained distrust, distaste, and disinterest. Goodbye, organized Jewish community.
But this JNF clue offers us the bigger subtext of the Beinart peice, if you care to look. The establishment isn’t just right-wing and morally pegged to odious Israeli policies. It’s lost. It has no moral compass, no calling, no grand mission statement. Raising money to feed a bloated infrastructure dedicated to fighting yesterday’s battles is the only motivation it seems to offer us.
I regard the organized Jewish community with distrust, distaste and disinterest because I have values. Powerful, commanding, universal values that I feel come from Judaism, via my family. It’s a shame those universal values aren’t shared by the previous Jewish leadership.
Richard Silverstein is one of my favorite writers on Israel-Palestine. He’s a principled liberal with an eye for political realities, and an unwavering dedication to peace. He tends to be one of the best at cutting through whatever the day’s talking points and divisive arguments are (from both the right and the left) and really getting to the heart of matters. And he’s superb at contextualizing current events in terms of the larger political and cultural struggle for peace.
I kid you not, the best that the brightest minds behind the Israel lobby could devise in preparation for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s upcoming appearance at the UN in New York is taking out this full-page ad in the N.Y. Times, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars, and saying the way to stop Iran’s ‘unquenchable thirst’ for nuclear weapons is to stop using oil.
I agree with Silverstein that Iran is too often used by Israel apologists as a distraction from more pressing issues, and I too resent the tendency of the organizations behind this ad (according to Silverstein they include AIPAC, the ADL, B’nai Brith, and others) to paint complicated issues as simple goodguys-vs.-badguys scenarios, but criticizing someone who advocates energy independence puts you in a tricky position. Silverstein does address this near the beginning of his post:
Well, OK, not all oil, we can keep guzzling good ol’ U.S. crude, but “foreign” oil is bad.
He’s definitely hitting the nail on the head here: focusing only on foreign oil dependence tends to refocus the debate on energy instead of climate change (which in my opinion is the wrong focus). That being said, anyone paying any attention to the domestic political discourse on climate change knows that some of our strongest allies are the guys with national security credentials and the businesspeople. The former are already on board; the challenge now is wooing the latter. The tripartisan (it is ridiculous that that is even a term) climate bill that was supposed to be introduced last week made some pretty excellent progress on this, but it’s slow going. For some inspiration, here’s what Thomas Friedman thinks Obama should say:
“Yes, if we pass this energy legislation, a small price on carbon will likely show up on your gasoline or electricity bill. I’m not going to lie. But it is an investment that will pay off in so many ways. It will spur innovation in energy efficiency that will actually lower the total amount you pay for driving, heating or cooling. It will reduce carbon pollution in the air we breathe and make us healthier as a country. It will reduce the money we are sending to nations that crush democracy and promote intolerance. It will strengthen the dollar. It will make us more energy secure, environmentally secure and strategically secure. Sure, our opponents will scream ‘carbon tax!’ Well, what do you think you’re paying now to OPEC? The only difference between me and my opponents is that I want to keep any revenue we generate here to build American schools, American highways, American high-speed rail, American research labs and American economic strength. It’s just a little tick I have: I like to see our spending build our country. They don’t care. They are perfectly happy to see all the money you spend to fill your tank or heat your home go overseas, so we end up funding both sides in the war on terrorism — our military and their extremists.”
Climate change is as much, if not more, of a threat to our national security as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The two issues make for strange bedfellows, to be sure. But right now we need more bedfellows, not less. These are global problems, and if takes the whole globe in bed together to find solutions, then so be it.
Max Blumenthal visited this past weekend’s intensely noxious Israel rally organized by far-right and religious nationalist Jewish orgs in New York. Cheers and accusations of “Obama is a Muslim” and a non-citizen, that Rahm Emmanuel is a “self-hater” and others like him “kapos,” and that “Binyamin Netanyahu is the leader of the free world” make this footage surreal. Unlike some of Blumenthal’s past visual indictments, however, these words were spoken aplenty by the organizers at the podium.
According to the NY Jewish Week, NY Representative Anthony Weiner sought a moment at the podium, but was denied by organizers lest he defend the Obama administration too much. State assemblyman Dov Hinkind castigated mainstream Jewish groups for their perceived silence. Fliers were distributed supporting the Prime Ministerial candidacy of Likud’s Moshe Feiglin, advocate of ethnically cleansing the Palestinians. In attendance were the Republican Jewish Coalition, the Hudson Institute, World Committee for the Land of Israel, the Jerusalem Reclamation Project, the Zionist Organization of America, Z Street, Americans for a Safe Israel, Christians United for Israel, and Manhigut Yehudit, the latter of which calls for a Jewish theocracy.
The seven-minute clip ends with a quote from my favorite religious commentator on Israel, Yeshayahu Liebowitz, “Religious nationalism is to religion what National Socialism is to socialism.”
Well, I agreed with Hershel Schachter, rosh yeshiva of Yeshiva University, last week, but unsurprisingly, this didn’t last long. Cross-Currents reports that, at this week’s Rabbinical Council of America convention, Schachter taught a class on why women could not be ordained, and said that ordaining women was a yeihareig ve’al ya’avor (i.e., in the category of violations that Jews are commanded to die rather than transgress), “because the Conservative movement had made egalitarianism a key plank in its platform”.
First of all, if Cross-Currents is reporting his statement accurately, Schachter is wrong on the facts, and giving the Conservative movement much more credit than it deserves. The Conservative movement has always been timid about egalitarianism, treating it as a leniency rather than as a principle, and certainly not as “a key plank in its platform”. There are still a number of non-egalitarian Conservative congregations, and the movement doesn’t seem to have a problem with this.
But let’s look at the general principle that Schachter propounds, that any key plank of the Conservative movement’s platform becomes a yeihareig ve’al ya’avor for Torah Jews. One of the things that Emet Ve’Emunah, the Conservative movement’s “Statement of Principles”, actually does say is “Conservative Judaism affirms the critical importance of belief in God”. Therefore, anyone following Schachter’s opinion must conclude that it is strictly forbidden to believe in God, and that this prohibition is so serious that it is better to die than to violate it. Yes, some (presumably left-wing fringe) Orthodox Jews and congregations still believe in God, but we can assume that they will fall into line soon.
I can see the scene now: Schachter and his students giving up their lives al kiddush [REDACTED], having their skin flayed with iron combs as they say with their last breaths, “Hear O Israel: There is no God!”
Last week, Warren Goldstein, the chief rabbi of South Africa and a persistent critic of the report, wrote in the newspaper Business Day that the judge should be allowed to attend the bar mitzvah because every synagogue “should welcome in a tolerant and nonjudgmental way all who seek to enter and join in our service and pray to God.”
Glad these guys realized the error of their ways.
But Rabbi Goldstein also renewed his criticism of the judge, saying his report “has unfairly done enormous damage to the reputation and safety of the State of Israel and her citizens.”
Oh wait, that’s right. Never mind.
He [Goldstone] added that Rabbi Goldstein’s “rhetoric” about tolerance “simply does not coincide with how my family and I have been treated.”
That just about covers it. It takes a pretty despicable lowlife to uninvite someone from their grandson’s Bar Mitzvah because of political differences. Rabbi Goldstein does not deserve to be a community leader.
One more thing. They didn’t just invite him back. They effectively “reached an agreement.”
A day earlier, the South African Jewish Board of Deputies, which represents most of the country’s synagogues, issued a statement that outlined something like a quid pro quo: a promise of no protests on the bar mitzvah boy’s big day, in exchange for a meeting between the judge and leaders of the South African Zionist Federation and other Jewish organizations.
Disgusting. They actually felt the need to make political deals to preserve their image. Couldn’t have their constituents believing they were bighearted people willing to put aside political differences to celebrate together, or anything radical like that.
Last note: I can’t wait to see what comes out of that meeting. If Goldstone’s past encounters with his detractors are any measure, the SA Zionist Federation is going to be subject to a pretty thorough in-person fisking.
C'mon, the Polish Carpathians are at least as beautiful as the Judean Hills!
The recent Forward article entitled “Why Poland’s Jews Mourn Their President” seems to be answering the elephant-sized question that many have been silently asking themselves: Why are so many Jewish organizations (including March of the Living) and The State of Israel voicing such an outpouring of solidarity and sympathy for Poles in a time of their most terrible loss? Could it be an indication that Jewish communities and organizations are finally looking at the Poles as more than the ambivalent caretakers of their most sacred graveyard? Is it simply a sign that the established Jewish community can reach out their hands even to those they perceive as perpetrators of a most grave crime?
Kaczynski’s politics were not more popular among Poland’s Jewish community of 8,000 than among Poles at large. But the Jews had real reason to mourn a leader who had shown sympathy and support both to them and to the State of Israel, from the day when, soon after winning the 2005 presidential election, he compared himself to Ariel Sharon.
Indeed, there are analogies between the political philosophies of the two. Both were conservative leaders with strong nationalist feelings and were at the helm of countries they considered threatened by neighbors. (Kaczynski took a dim view not only of the past, but also of the present policies of Germany and Russia.) Both were impatient with what they considered liberal indifference to their respective national traditions and values. And both strongly believed in the fundamental role of the state as the nation’s most valuable institution. Both tended to look at what they believed history’s judgment would be, rather than at public opinion polls.
Kaczynski was far from being the only conservative European politician in power today. Yet it would be difficult to imagine any other European leader comparing himself to Sharon; the public-opinion fallout would be devastating. But Kaczynski had no such qualms. To him, the Israeli prime minister was an inspiration, and Israel a friendly state. Much of Polish public opinion tended to agree with him. No criticism followed his Sharon remarks.
That’s right, a top Polish politician was into THE BULLDOZER. In this intricate web of official condolence calls and mixed feelings, Gebert articulates too well that the contemporary Polish-Jewish relationship can be understood through the perceived political affinities between two right-wing nationalists who became intensely unpopular during their lifetimes. It goes to show that as Jewish cultural revival continues throughout the Polish lands, the elite descendants of Polish Jewry living in America and Israel largely see their relationship to Poland through a Zionist, not Ashkenazi, lens. This seems to imply that, at least on an official level, the development of Polish-Jewish reconciliation has largely been achieved through the work of politicians, not through the work of grassroots activists who spend so much time investing in a future for Jewish culture and memory in Poland. I never would have thought that March of the Living, an organization that has been repeatedly criticized for portraying Poland as a bloody, smoldering launching pad for the Zionist future, would require a moment of silence for victims of the crash as it toured its participants through Auschwitz. Do our leaders really feel sympathy for the Poles, or are we just trying to maintain alliances in a Europe increasingly critical of Israeli policy? A mixture of both?
Gebert continues:
His (Kaczynski’s) Jewish sympathies earned him the scorn of antisemitic extremists, who accused him of being Jewish himself (his “true” name supposedly was Kalkstein); somehow, his brother escaped being thus tainted. Rydzyk brutally attacked the Polish president during a lecture in 2007, accusing him of giving in to Jews, both by allocating land for the museum and supposedly ignoring the alleged threat of Jewish reparation demands. In contrast with his brother, Lech Kaczynski never granted the fundamentalist station an interview. But he had to pay the price for tolerating Jarosław’s alliances. At the funeral last year of Marek Edelman, deputy commander of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising and a hero to the president, Kaczynski stood in silence and alone: The family refused him the right to speak, as Edelman had bitterly criticized the twin brothers’ policies…
…Alive, Kaczynski was a divisive and increasingly unpopular figure because of his authoritarian views, with approval ratings recently as low as 32%. But his tragic death has transformed him into a national icon, with all of Poland united in mourning. Polish Jews shared that pain with all other Polish citizens: A memorial service held in Warsaw’s only synagogue was packed full the day after the plane crash.
Jewish social justice outfit Jewish Funds for Justice decided to fight back by creating a central repository of anti-Beck haikus. And they’re tweeting them at him. It’s all good. Just go to Haiku Glenn Beck or tweet using the #tag #becku.
Some of my faves:
And Jesus said to
All his hungry disciples
“Hands off my fish, chumps”
it used to be just
thirty pieces of silver
but now? sponsor’s gold
Glenn Beck knows that when
Jesus preached social justice
it was sarcasm.
Beckstein reminds me
of the kid in my Jew school
who ate the glue stick
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