In a woeful attempt at self-aggrandizement and “holier than thou” posturing, recent editorials have sprung up bashing Edgar Bronfman’s now month old comments and (and clarifications thereof) concerning communal attitudes towards the offspring of intermarried couples.

While many J-Blogs have thoroughly discussed and deliberated the issue, some J-Media big dudes like the Jewish Press were so busy with their incessant Kerry bashing that they didn’t notice what was all abuzz among their British counterparts. If the Jewish media is your only source for information on what transpires outside of your own daled amos you only know what you read in their deplorable editorials which are of course slanted towards those papers’ own agendas (whatever they might be). Suffice to say that it tells an incomplete story and sells a situation short, in probable hope of living up to the pastime of stirring things up on the letters pages.

Leave it to the self-righteous and indignant editors of the Jewish Press, to publish a hideous editorial – two weeks after Mr. Bronfman had already published an apology and clarification of his earlier statements, which nearly a month afterwards, they’ve just gotten around to responding to. As I have said many times before, I find it disconcerting that the Jewish Press time and again acts as judge, jury and executioner for anyone and everything in the Jewish community and it’s about time someone stepped up to employ some checks and balances on them.

In the editorial, of course, Mr. Bronfman’s statements are skewed out of context, and are used to win points with readers and their “holier than thou” attitudes. The most deplorable words come at the end of the missive, which is in my humble opinion more damaging and insulting than anything implied by the original statements made by Mr. Bronfman.

In any event, there is a vast difference between non-observance and dismissing the notion of Divine imperatives. Edgar Bronfman is hardly the person for a leadership role in the Jewish community. Tevye the Milkman was perhaps correct when he observed that “When you’re rich, they think you really know.” But Edgar Bronfman plainly hasn’t a clue about what makes the Jewish nation a unique and holy one.

The first sentence sounds great but makes absolutely no sense in context, since it has absolutely nothing to do with the original statements which have since been thoroughly exhausted everywhere across the Jewish Interweb. To counter the implication made by the silly invocation of Tevye’s quote, one need only look to Hillel, an organization which largely comes directly out of Mr. Bronfman’s pocket, as a clue of what makes the Jewish nation a unique and holy one. Hundreds of thousands of college students throughout over the years are able to be included and seek to identify themselves as Jews as result of Hillel’s activities.

The second installment comes in the form of a paid advertisement by none other than fellow J-Blogger, than disgruntled Marvin Schick. If anything, Mr. Shick’s rant basically proves Bronfman’s point, that our communal attitudes to each other are so bigoted that it is indeed a form of racism, as Mr. Shick so eloquently (albeit unintentionally) illustrates. Shick takes the American J-Media to task for their silence on the Bronfman statements of a month ago – and his attack comes curiously at the same exact moment as the Jewish Press editorial. But once again, as was the case with the Jewish Press, Mr. Shick’s baseless rant further proves the point Mr. Bronfman was trying to make – about the vehement hatred within the Jewish Community.

Mr. Shick, who professes to know so much, shows that he really has no clue whatsoever, as he clearly indicates: “I cannot figure out what he was trying to say about intermarriage.” What Bronfman was alluding to, is that the issue isn’t intermarriage as so much as the effect Jewish attitudes towards intermarriage have on the children of intermarried couples, who one day could become possible chevruta and shidduchim for other Jewish children, if only they were welcomed by, rather than ostracized by the community. Clearly Mr. Shick and The Jewish Press like him, have an interest in only the latter.

So much for ahavat yisrael.