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John McCain tells press in Israel that Purim is Jewish Halloween, Lieberman corrects him, again

Posted by JILL MILLER ZIMON in Politics.
Mar 21st, 2008 | Comments

Sigh. How many times do we have to pray that we get a president smarter than George Bush? No. Really. Talk about a God who works in mysterious ways.

What did Republican candidate for president and Arizona Senator John “I’m so experienced in foreign policy” McCain say this time? (You know I find something outrageous when I’m at this level of snark.)

Oh – just this little tidbit, covered by MSNBC, Huffington Post and JTA, among others. From JTA:

U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said Purim is the Jewish version of Halloween during his Israel visit.

McCain was corrected by Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.), one of the Republican presidential nominee’s chief supporters who accompanied him on the trip, according to MSNBC.

In a news conference Wednesday with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak following a tour of the besieged southern Israeli city of Sderot, McCain had noted the impact of continued rocket fire on the city’s children.

“As they celebrate their version of Halloween here, they are somewhere close to a 15-second warning, which is the amount of time they have from the time the rocket is launched to get to safety,” McCain said. “That’s not a way for people to live obviously.”

Lieberman at the news conference said the fault was his, as he had compared the two holidays in explaining its significance to McCain.

Lieberman reinforces just how little McCain’s foreign policy experiences matters with the fact that rather than describe the holiday as it actually is, he figured that McCain would only be able to absorb or “get it” if he (Lieberman) used the Halloween analogy.

As a Jew, I’ve mentioned how kids dress up for Purim like kids dress up at Halloween. But I have never told anyone that the holiday is the Jewish version of Halloween.

The only reason anyone would describe the holiday that way is because they don’t think the listener has the capacity to understand the holiday in any other terms.

Remember the British teacher in Sudan who was jailed for letting the kids name a teddy bear Mohammed? When it was obviously a simple cultural mistake? And thousands of the country’s citizens rioted and wanted her killed?

I’m really not wanting our next president to be neutralized that way.

PS – I want to add that if he or any of his staff or volunteers had been reading my blog posts about Purim, they would never have made such a mistake.

VSAS: 8 [For readers unfamiliar with Writes Like She Talks, VSAS is the Vessels Sarcasm Alert Scale, named in honor of blogger Eric Vessels of Plunderbund. Eric is an Ohio blogging buddy who once thought I was being serious when in fact I was being completely lowball in relation to what some very conservative Ohio GOP blog was trying to do. He suggested that I give a warning whenever I was using humor because most of my regular readers just don't expect that kind of underhanded post from me. Thus was born the VSAS.]

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Jillmz

Someone emailed me a couple of questions that I think are really good and help clarify why I'd feel this way about this incident.

First, what is embarrassing about it (I tagged it as Embarrassment).

To me, it would be embarrassing if I visited the Vatican on Easter and referred to it to the press there as the Jewish Passover since they so often occur near each other and Good Friday is related to the Last Supper which was in fact a seder, only to learn that it's about celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ, which is definitely not the same as celebrating the Exodus from Egypt. That would embarrass me.

CStanley

Why do you assume that Lieberman didn't try to explain it any other way (or that McCain didn't try to understand it differently) because he believes that McCain just wouldn't grasp it? Maybe it was context, and relevance to what they were actually focused on, which was the rocket fire and how it was affecting the Israeli population? McCain's comment was in reference to that, and in speaking to an American audience about that it would make sense to reference Halloween (because we all know how we'd feel if there was a threat of violent attack on the night when our kids were trick or treating.) To me it seemed that both Lieberman and McCain zeroed in on that comparison as a way to express the concern for how Israeli parents must be feeling at this time. The religious significance just wasn't relevant to that point.

Whocares

“Diplomacy is not just talking with your friends, but talking to our enemies,” Obama said. ”We want to send a signal to the Iranian people that we are reasonable. We are not looking to impede Iran’s legitimate national aspirations, but they have to change their behavior.”

From Barak Obama's website.

Obama would offer the Iranian regime a choice. If Iran abandons its nuclear program and support for terrorism, we will offer incentives like membership in the World Trade Organization, economic investments, and a move toward normal diplomatic relations. If Iran continues its troubling behavior, we will step up our economic pressure and political isolation.

Okay lets consider both statements. Barak Obama seems to be the rational, non confrontational foreign policy candidate here who is reaching out with olive branches to our enemies. That is until you simply look at what he has said.

"We want the Iranians to know that we want to be moderate and that we want to work things out and have a happy coexistence..............IF...........they will toe the line, concede to our demands otherwise we will slap them with sanctions and make life miserable.

Now why should they believe Barak Obama wants to work things out when he in his own words called Iran our ENEMY. He is moderate and reasonable and yet is calling the very people that he wants to work things out with ...........OUR ENEMY?

Forgive me but yes McCain is a foreign policy GENIUS when compared to Barak Obama. Someone writing his campaign website position reports doesn't even understand the value of semantics and implication when it comes to foreign policy.

Jillmz

CStanley - the audience was a news conference - I would assume it was international - many religions, races and ethnicities - some of which don't know anything about Halloween OR Purim for that matter.

I fail to see how the Sderot context has any influence at all on how the holiday would be explained - you are not saying that Halloween has something to do with rocket fire??

Sorry - but unless you know a few things about this holiday and what it is like to be a Jew who constantly hears a holiday referred to in the least common denominator way even though it doesn't really serve as an adequate comparison - especially to a presidential candidate who is visiting the State of Israel, then I feel very safe in my assumption.

While it's true that Jews do and will often say that kids dress up like Halloween, the two holidays have NOTHING in common EXCEPT that. Period.

It is not and never was and never will be the Jewish Halloween.

Oy.

CStanley

I think my comment was clear, but you disagree with my point about context. Fine to disagree, but I don't see how you dismiss the context so easily- the whole reason he mentioned Purim was because of the danger to the kids, so yes, the Sderot context is relevant, it's actually the whole point. Otherwise he wouldn't be talking about Purim at all.

I can see that you find this offensive, and I simply don't think I'd be offended in a similar situation (if a Christian holiday celebrated in America were described to an international audience according to its more secular customs.) That doesn't mean you don't have a right to your own feelings, but I admit I don't identify with them. And if it's important for people outside the Jewish faith to show respect for the Jewish traditions by making a greater attempt to understand them, then isn't it a problem that many Jewish people DO describe this holiday that way? When I heard about the 'gaffe', I instantly remembered a friend from Israel who sent me photos of her kids dressed up for Purim and she wrote in the e-mail that it was like their version of Halloween. I assumed it had a different, deeper meaning, and she was just using that as shorthand to describe why her kids were in costumes. Just as Lieberman explained it that way to McCain as they discussed the danger to the kids during this holiday.

CStanley

In rereading, I feel that my comments came across as too critical of your feelings, Jill, and that wasn't my intention. What I meant was that I just can't identify with, or relate to your feeling that this is a slight. That doesn't mean that you aren't entitled to your feelings, though, and I didn't mean to imply that.

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