UPDATED [at end of article] I’m Catholic, but/and love the vibrancy, humor and quick intelligence of many Jewish people and their deeply instructive ancient texts.
There may be a few Jewish folks who vote for Weiner, but given the video of Weiner not being able to have a civil conversation with a Jewish voter whose opinion is essentially: Weiner should drop out of the race because of his way of treating his wife and his base behavior, etc.
But it’s not only that Weiner of past huge political power, got on his pony and tried to mow a mere citizen down– which he was not successful at doing. Weiner could not silence the man.
But rather Weiner did several things, caught on video, that are almost guaranteed to give great pause to many voters who want a calm, insightful, helpful, useful person as mayor of their city, not a ranting, bellowing man screeching with food in his mouth, who cares not that he’s hearing [being confronted] by a citizen and voter, a potential constituant regardless.
Weiner, on his way out of a deli, it appeared, heard a man who was still in the restaurant saying Weiner should not be in the mayoral race.[see Update below] Instead of replying thoughtfully, or ignoring this as the cameras rolled on, Wiener, with a droopy bag of something in his hand, not only turned and taunted the man as having no courage, Weiner, far taller than the man who spoke, charged back into the store in a rage, stood over the man, and began shrieking over the man.{see Update below]
Instead of a reasoned conversation or debate, we see Weiner in what in actual formal debate is sometimes called the ‘grave-digger’ response. It means when you berate instead of debate your opponent by usually one or more of these means: you are an idiot, you have no right to speak, you are Hitler, you are unjust, you are not God, you dont know who I am, you dont know how important I am, you are nothing, you have no right, and more of ‘you have no right’ — the screamer using those tropes has lost it. They’ve dug their own grave while trying to bury someone else. In other words, it is no longer a debate or a conversation that is useful or effective.
As I watched the video, I kept thinking of those who in the future would come to the Mayor’s office to ask for, request, find, help, show re everything from education to unions to construction to law enforcement to public service to public appointments and more… and that it would not at all be good to have an unsteady mayoral rod attached to the city’s wheelbase… for most longshoremen, carpenters, contractors, people, men and women who truly use their muscle and might and spirits to hoist and raise and load and confine and build to make the city go, would not sit peaceably with a hothead for a mayor.
In fact, I am almost sure, coming from working class people, that someone who hefts concrete or tar buckets or operates cranes for a living would definitely have to restrain themselves in the face of Weiner’s insults and ravings, from leaving all Weiner’s teeth intact. It’s one thing to say things, it’s quite another to use one’s body to charge others, to stand over them, and to shout over them with spittle flying.
The man confronting Weiner did so with an opinion oddly similar to that of our Popes when chastising a person who has stepped way out of line in the secular world– The Popes order such a person to a long period of withdrawing from the public into prayer and penance instead… He was saying Weiner should withdraw, go home, get a job, be with his wife, respect his wife, that Weiner’d betrayed her. It was, rather amazing to see the man not only kept his cool unlike Weiner, stayed on message, unlike Weiner, and did not back down even as Weiner was being abusive in looming over and screeching.
We all have bad days. Most of us have memories of one thing or another not being our most stellar moment. Maybe that was the deal with Weiner at the deli. Maybe all other days, he is reasoned and civil. I only know that there are falsifications of religious beliefs; some live their religious beliefs in kindly and useful ways, some only yell about them. Yet, it’s a Jewish/Christian/Aetheist/Deist/Buddhist/B’Hai/Muslim/Jain/Coptic/Earth/old religions, etc., value: to have a decent basis for how one treats others, even others who are contentious. Most walk away. They dont decide to pounce and blurt and die on mole hills. They know the difference between a mountain and a blip. Even so, perhaps Weiner was just having a bad day. Time will tell.
The man in the deli I think is owed an apology as are all the people in the deli who were startled or frightened by Weiner charging like a car out of control with no brakes. It could be done and well. Without excuses. Just, that he lost it. That the issue of what he did is still difficult for him to deal with. That he is sorry he acted like a childish bully. Many would probably understand such reasoning and forgive the rage-ranting Weiner did.
But/and…
I have to say though, just for comic relief, as you might watch the film, ignore all of Weiner’s ranting about ‘only God can judge Weiner’ [seemed like he used the word ‘God/judge/me/you’ every other of his attempted but poorly aimed tromps]– and instead watch the young Hassidic man in the background inside the deli, in his long dark traditional garb, he sees the comedy in Weiner’s attacks.
My father, who was an old fashioned tailor from the Old Country used to mutter about despicable or inappropriate candidates running for office, “Mehbi ve coot rical dems befou dera lected. Maybe we could ‘recall’ them before they are ever elected.”
I hope you are laughing with me.
Dr.e
UPDATE Sept 5, 2013: On the video link given by the NTY, one can hear a person saying ‘married to an Arab.” Here is the audio/video link placed with time stamp. It seems the words to Weiner were ‘scumbag, ah,’ then a pause, then words as noted above. Given that the deli appears to be a gathering place of observant Jews wearing their yamakas daily, and Hassidim in payot, and likely strong support for Israel and conservative Jewish religious values, I’d imagine Weiner might be seen by conservative-religious Jews as a man born Jewish who says he practices Judaism, but/and who married a woman whose late father was East Indian and whose mother is Pakistani, and said young woman now age 37 [who was born in Kalamazoo Michigan], whose name is Huma Abedin, is a practicing Muslim.
on July 10, 2010, Weiner and Huma Abedin were married
by April 2011, Huma was pregnant
on May 27, 2011, Weiner sent sexual pix of himself via Twitter to various
on June 21, 2011, Weiner resigned from Congress
in December 2011, a little boy was born to Weiner and Huma Abedin
on July 23, 2013, Mr Weiner, in response to allegations he continued sexting after his resignation up until recently, admitted so again.
I am not a Jew, and do not know the deeper currents of modern/ancient Judaism in New York City. I do sense that though the conservative-religious Jewish community no doubt has serious thoughts about how Weiner ignored for whatever reasons, the time honored marriage choice of a Jewish woman, and trod on the matrilineal tradition re Weiner’s new family, as in ancient Judaism to the present, it was understood that no matter who the father was, if the mother was Jewish, her child was Jewish, amongst other issues of Jewish revered practices.
That Weiner might have chosen any other than a Jewish woman, say a Buddhist, a Coptic, a Science of Mind churched person, the disapproval would be as great, the sense of having lost a brother one could depend on would be as great, and the moral outrage about demeaning one’s own pregnant wife [again, I am not a Jewish scholar, but I do know there are ablutions and blessings and caring instruction given around making love to one’s wife as a spiritual practice, and being in loving sexual relationship with her] …
and added to all those which are seen as insulting the Jewish faith by treating it casually, and more, is memory of long ago and current struggles in the Mideast between peoples who follow two different religions, both holding many things sacred, both having their outspoken persons, and as we follow in the news daily, also their hugely difficult challenges toward a new day. And many Jews in the US are relatives, descendants of the Mideast tribal groups and modern families. It’s far more complex than any newspaper, magazine or blog can say. It would take a library of books and films to get near the entire picture.
— Yet the larger issue is not Weiner’s hotheadedness and his poor judgements, not the boorish open-mouth-full-of-food rant at a Jewish deli –the larger issue is going unfortunately Im afraid, going to be Huma. Weiner rose and fell, rose and fell, on again, off again, Finnegan [to mix a metaphor ethnically] but Huma was a close aide of Hillary Clinton. And if I read the winds right, a storm is being summoned up from Neptune, God of Storms, by the GOP who want to Benghazi anyone who runs against their GOP candidates, particularly Hillary… if she runs.
And as for Anthony Weiner, it is reported by the NYT: “Critics took aim at Mr. Weiner for engaging in a screaming match just hours before the start of Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year. But shortly after the encounter, he defended his behavior.
“Stood up to a heckler,” he wrote on Twitter. “That’s what mayors have to do sometimes.”
Except Mr. Weiner seems to forget. He’s not a mayor.
UPDATE Sept 4, 2013: It appears that the man who confronted Mr. Weiner, called him a scumbag ah, as Weiner was walking out of the Deli, and also invited Weiner to come back in, that he was not afraid of him. Weiner’s office released their own video, and I’d just opine, given Wiener’s much talking on the film but lack of warmth and actual real contact with the workers and customers of the Deli, the film makes him look detached, photo-op hungry, and worse than the first file. Here is a link to Weiner’s film: