The Fox Movie Channel showed “Gentleman’s Agreement” last night, a preachy drama about anti-Semitism that won the Academy Award 60 years ago, and it brought into focus the realization that I may live to see a black man inaugurated as President of the United States.

What Barack Obama faces from now until November would be unimaginable to the people who made and saw that movie then, including a 23-year-old just back from World War II who had little audacity and even less hope of living in the rich, glossy world it portrayed.

Gregory Peck played a magazine writer who pretends to be Jewish. A decade later, I was an editor on one of those magazines, unknowingly hired by George W. Bush’s grandfather as the first Jew among thousands of employees, working with Laura Z. Hobson, who wrote the novel on which the picture was based.

Read the rest of this entry.

Whatever happened to the Melting Pot? Now we learn that “Barack Obama is faring better than might be expected among Jewish voters, beating John McCain in Gallup Poll Daily general-election matchups and trailing Hillary Clinton only slightly in Jewish Democrats’ preferences for the Democratic nomination.”

This crucial piece of information tells us what? That Jews don’t blame Obama for the anti-Semitic outbursts decades ago by Louis Farrakhan, who is admired by his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright? Is this something we need to know? A wise old editor I worked with used to say about such useless information, “Uninteresting, if true.”

As pollsters and political “experts” turn this election year into a demographic nightmare, pinning labels on voters by race, gender, religious affiliation, age, income, education, everything but height and weight, the dominant theme of the campaign coverage has become parsing everything that divides Americans and deciding which politician profits from which.

Obama keeps talking about reaching across those divisions, but the media story line keeps magnifying them. All of this perpetuates the beliefs of Karl Rove and his ilk that the way to win elections is to divide and conquer.

Voters, who have seen how well that worked out for them in the past eight years, may be ready to defy the labels and surprise the experts. Now that would be interesting, if true.

Cross-posted from my blog.

Ken Livingstone is a vicious bigot and I won’t miss him.

BBC:

Boris Johnson has won the race to become the next mayor of London - ending Ken Livingstone’s eight-year reign at City Hall.

Tonight proved to be riveting political theater. I watched Barack Obama interviewed on three straight cable networks. While the talking heads on each channel were predictably different, the interviews took on very similar tacks. How long have you been going to TUCC? Why didn’t you distance yourself from Wright before? What do you denounce? Etc. And out of it all I finally grasped the real issue at heart here: judgment.

For the right wing, this is about patriotism. Does Barack Obama actually share Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s radical and often anti-American political views? Since Republicans tar every Democrat with the crime of insufficient patriotism, it’s been striking to me up to now just how spurious this claim has been. Focus on flag pins, hands on heart and a comment from Michelle Obama taken out of context have only convinced me that the patriotism charge is bogus. So they’ve turned to the even more comical Muslim smear. The Wright comments don’t really add to this except for people who already believe that Democrats detest their country.

But there is a deeper and more serious issue at the heart of this controversy that has little to do with Obama’s political views and a lot more to do with his character: judgment. In fact, he’s made his judgment a key part of his campaign. He doesn’t claim to have perfect judgment but he does insist that he gets the big things right. For many Americans his Iraq stance in 2002 is an example of this.

But the Wright controversy - and especially the responses Obama offered in all three interviews - raised a different kind of judgment question. Why did he stick around the Trinity United Church of Christ even if he vehemently disagreed with Reverend Wright’s political views? There are two theoretical and plausible ways to answer this. The first is that Obama - like many church and synagogue goers - simply compartmentalizes his relationship to his place of worship. That is, he loves the Jesus, faith and community but tunes out or occasionally cringes at sermon time. We’ve all been in religious situations like this, where we cherish the minister or rabbi for their personal pastoral care but we find their comments on this or that issue objectionable. We recognize that the politics of religious officiants do not comprise the totality of the overall ministry.

But Obama has only partly gone down this route. He’s praised Wright’s personal ministry to the Obama family for years and he still holds that relationship in high esteem. But in the interviews tonight Obama made a second claim that is a bit surprising. He says he simply never heard these incendiary sermons while in the pew, and that the first he heard of the controversial nature of some of Wright’s sermons was in early 2007. It was alarming enough at the time to keep Wright off the announcement program. He also insisted that if he did hear these sermons he would have told Wright to knock it off because they’re inappropriate. And then, if Wright persisted in these paranoid rants, Obama would quit the church.

So this raises a question about judgment and even honesty here. Did Obama really not know about these sermons? I think it’s very plausible that he did not sit in the pews for them. TUCC runs several services each Sunday and it’s likely that Obama did not attend the big league “Hour of Power” service from which the DVDs are taken. Like most megachurches (TUCC has 6,000 members), Obama’s church has more family-oriented services as well as the theatrical Hour of Power. My guess is that Obama brought his children in to the family services and so never heard the incendiary remarks there. That much is highly believable. But did Obama really not know that Wright even said these things? Did not news of, say, the 9/11 sermon not percolate throughout the TUCC community such that Obama would have heard about it - even if he didn’t hear the sermon itself? And if he did hear of it, why did he not say anything of concern to Jeremiah Wright?

I trust Barack Obama. I’ve trusted him from the beginning and I trust him now. If this were a different political candidate I’d be certain that there was some sort of obfuscation going on. But I just don’t see that from Obama. Nevertheless, that means I have to believe in his judgment as well as his honesty. If it turns out that he either did attend some of these incendiary speeches, or that they were so commonplace that Obama would have found them unremarkable, then I would have to question his judgment. Why would he continue to attend a church so contrary to his own views? If he compartmentalized, did he not bother to ask what was going on at the Hour of Power?

This is a tough issue for me. I’m as big an Obama supporter as you can get. A big draw for me is his ability to turn the generational page. In fact, one very appealing comment he made tonight was that Wright is stuck in the 1960s era of radicalism and anger and Obama wants to turn to a new and more hopeful age. Wright serves to highlight that transformation in a way. But I want to make sure that Obama was honest tonight that he never heard these kinds of speeches. If it checks out, I think the whole story blows over. The timing is perfect for Obama as no election comes until late April. By then we’ll have forgotten about all this. And the public will have heard Obama’s condemnation of Wright such that when the inevitable GOP 527 group offers the attack ad, people will say, “Yeah, we’ve already heard about that. Whatever.”

I think Barack Obama handled this masterfully by taking it head on. Video is too powerful to ignore. But he made some statements that went beyond what I expected. He claimed that this stuff was news to him too. That’s possible. I certainly hope it’s true.

Haaretz:

In his eulogy to the eight students gunned down Thursday in a shooting attack at the Mercaz Harav yeshiva in Jerusalem, the religious school’s head rabbi Ya’akov Shapira declared the attack “a continuation of the 1929 massacre” of the Jewish community in Hebron. He said the gunman had targeted “everyone living in the holy city of Jerusalem.”

The eight victims were buried Friday afternoon, each with Torah scrolls stained with their blood, in accordance with the Halakhic decision ruled by former Chief Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu.

AND

One of the dead was American student Avraham David Moses, aged 16.

AND

Hundreds of mourners, among them family, friends, and public figures, paid their final respects to Doron Maharata, the oldest of those killed Thursday. Maharata, 26, is survived by his parents and six siblings.

Maharata’s family immigrated to Israel from Ethiopia as part of Operation Moses when he was eight years old. Upon their arrival, the Maharatas made their home in Kfar Hitim before moving to Ashdod.

AND

The other victims were named as Yochai Lipschitz, 18, of Jerusalem; Yonatan Yitzchak Eldar, 16, of Shiloh; Yonadav Chaim Hirschfeld, 19, of Kochav Hashahar; Neriah Cohen, 15, of Jerusalem; Roey Roth, 18, of Elkana; and Segev Pniel Avihayil, 15, of Neveh Daniel.

Ynet: Terrorists kill 8 in Jerusalem

Two terrorists infiltrate rabbinical seminary in Kiryat Moshe quarter, open fire at dozens of students. At least eight people reported killed. Police still in pursuit of second gunman. Celebrations already underway in Gaza

This is why Egypt should take over Gaza and Jordan should take over most Arab portions of the West Bank. Neither country needs encouragement to rule with an iron hand.

This is why Israeli Arabs (who are Israeli citizens) should swear a loyalty oath to the State of Israel (and not commit crimes against the sovereignty of the state) or face deportation with revocation of citizenship.

Jerusalem Post:

Eight people were confirmed dead in a terror attack at Merkaz Harav Yeshiva, near the entrance to Jerusalem on Thursday evening. According to Channel 2, the “Galilee Freedom Brigades”, which claimed responsibility for the attack, is a Hizbullah-affiliated organization.

Magen David Adom have confirmed 10 wounded civilians, including three seriously. One terrorist was said to have been killed by a student.

Witnesses said that only one terrorist had entered the building and that he managed to fire 500-600 bullets over the course of 4-10 minutes before he was killed.

Although witnesses said only a single terrorist carried out the attack, police were searching the building for an additional terrorist, preventing the entrance of rescue workers. Later Police Chief David Cohen confirmed that there were no additional attackers.

The terrorist entered the Merkaz Harav Yeshiva in the neighborhood of Kiryat Moshe carrying weapons. He was not wearing a suicide-bomb belt as earlier reported.

The gunman entered the library where about 80 people were gathered, witnesses said, and opened fire.

Statement from Hamas:

We bless the operation. It will not be the last

Haaretz Report: East Jerusalem resident behind attack

Nine Mercaz Harav students hurt, three in serious condition; most students are high school age

AND

In Gaza City, residents went out into the streets and fired rifles in celebration in the air after hearing news of the attack on the yeshiva.

Last March 4th, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, arms linked with civil rights leaders, were reenacting the 1965 march in Selma, united in declaring their debt to the non-violence of Martin Luther King. Today, they are at the precipice of divisions that could be suicidal for their party in November.

In Obama’s grasp for the nomination and Clinton’s last stand in Texas and Ohio, identity politics are threatening to tear the Democrats apart–accusations against him of Farrakhan sympathies to unnerve Jewish voters, paired with countercharges that the Clinton campaign is fueling them by distributing a photo of Obama in Muslim garb. Voters are being targeted by race, gender, ethnicity, economic status and any other demographic that could prejudice them.

Read more.

All the announcements and tributes mention Congressman Tom Lantos’ distinction as being the only Holocaust survivor ever elected to Congress. I don’t know how many Holocaust survivors have ever run for congress, but regardless, the fact that he will no longer bring the ideas and experience of that distinction to the legislative branch of our American government is unfortunate.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi:

As the only Holocaust survivor ever elected to Congress, Tom Lantos devoted his life to shining a bright light on dark corners of oppression. He used his chairmanship of the Foreign Affairs Committee to empower the powerless and give voice to the voiceless throughout the world.

Capitol Briefing:

Though a party-line Democrat on most issues, Lantos was known for teaming up with conservatives on the panel like Rep. Christopher Smith (R-N.J.) to bring scrutiny to the suppression of free speech in China and other issues. He also teamed up with many Republicans to back the Iraq war and advocate staunch support for Israel.

House Republican Whip Roy Blunt:

“Chairman Lantos will be remembered as a man of uncommon integrity and sincere moral conviction — and a public servant who never wavered in his pursuit of a better, freer and more religiously tolerant world,” House Republican Whip Roy Blunt of Missouri said in a statement.

JTA:

Lantos was not afraid to take on his allies. On the foreign affairs committee, he blasted Silicon Valley giants like Google and Yahho for colluding with China’s government in censorship. He authored tough Iran sanctions legislation but broke with pro-Israel orthodoxy by offering to meet with the Islamic Republic’s leaders. Pro-Israel groups also opposed a non-binding resolution that recognized the Ottoman era massacres of Armenians as a genocide, worried that it would cause a rift between Israel and Turkey — Lantos pushed it through the committee, unwilling to countenance what he saw as genocide revisionism.

His appeal crossed political aisles: Both the National Jewish Democratic Council and the Republican Jewish Coalition issued statements mourning his passing. Top Republicans on his committee also chimed in: “An unfailingly gracious and courageous man, Tom was recognized by friends and colleagues alike as a leader who left an enviable legacy of service to his country,” said U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros Lehtinen (R-Fla.), the committee’s ranking member.

DNC:

Our nation has lost a great public servant with the passing of Representative Tom Lantos. In serving his constituents and his country, Tom never forgot the Democratic Party’s ideals of freedom, fairness, and opportunity for all. As Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, he was an authority on foreign policy issues and a voice for the oppressed. The only Holocaust survivor in Congress, he was a forceful and passionate advocate for civil liberties and human rights. Today, I join with countless others across the country in offering my thoughts and prayers to Rep. Lantos’ family and friends as we honor his life and legacy.

NJDC:

Among his first major legislative accomplishments was legislation to give honorary citizenship to Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, a hero, who protected Lantos and many others from the Nazis. He went on to sponsor U.S. aid for Eastern European countries that had broken the shackles of communism, and became a strong voice of conscience against human rights abuses in China He was one of the leading voices in the House for sanctioning Myanmar’s regime due to human rights abuses. Among his other accomplishments, Rep. Lantos teamed with the late GOP Rep. Henry Hyde to secure $1.3 billion to fight AIDS around the world and to incentivize India to cooperate with international weapons inspectors.

Save the GOP:

In October, when Dutch parliament members came to Washington to complain to congress about Guantanamo Bay, Lantos reminded them that if not for the United States, they would be a province of Nazi Germany. He also added that “Europe was not as outraged by Auschwitz as by Guantanamo Bay.”

Lantos himself was an opponent of the Bush administration on the prosecution of the war, on Guantanamo, and on most other issues. But he never balked at an opportunity to defend the United States against those that would denigrate it. He recognized that politics stops at the waters edge. He was a great man, and he will be missed in Washington.

From a JTA News Alert today:

Obama listed falsehoods that appeared in an e-mail campaign aimed at Jewish voters.

“I never practiced Islam. I was raised by my secular mother. I have been a member of the Christian religion and an active member of a church,” he said. “I was sworn in with my hand on my family Bible and have said the Pledge of Allegiance since I was 3 years old.”

Obama, who also answered questions about his Iran and Israel-Palestinian policies, as well as noting that he had rebuked his church’s past association with Louis Farrakhan, concluded: “My strong and deep commitment and connection to the Jewish community should not be questioned.”

You can read more from the JTA and listen to the conference call here. This Washington Post column by Richard Cohen does a good job of detailing Obama’s church’s recent identification with Louis Farrakhan, whom the church said, “epitomized greatness” and why it feels problematic to some people.

As I’ve been trying to choose between the Democratic primary choices, I’ve spent more time looking at their statements and positions on Jews, Israel and the Middle East. Here’s Obama in today’s call on his church’s connection to Farrakhan:

Asked why it was sufficient for him to denounce his church’s recent praise for Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan but not resign from the church itself, Obama repeated his condemnation of Farrakhan’s “reprehensible” anti-Semitic views. Then he added what sounds like a promise: “My church has never issued anti-Semitic statements, nor have I heard my pastor utter anything anti-Semitic. If I have, I would have left the church.”

Are we okay with this stance? Would not resigning from a group led by individuals who laud someone like Farrakhan be good enough for other politicians or civic leaders, or have we, in the past, demanded that such people more firmly condemn a person who is considered by some to be homophobic, anti-Semitic and racist? Is there more Obama should be doing vis a vis ensuring his church’s “clean hands” or should we just not impute any uncleanliness to Obama?

I ask, because I’m not sure. What do you expect?

No immediate link to anything currently in the news, though it does remind me of my Dartmouth L.J. paper. I just wanted to save it for later:

The question of how Jews would fit in when cultural and linguistic identity became the basis of citizenship, and the Volksgeist was embodied in a Volksstaat, could be answered in only one of two ways. Either the Jews had to surrender their Jewishness and become good Germans or there would be no place for them. At the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth, a liberal assimilationist perspective was ascendant in German thought, but beneath it lurked a deep intolerance of the Jew who remained distinctive. In 1793, the philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte, who professed to be advocating that Jews be given “human rights,” put the choice before them in starkly brutal terms: “As for giving them [the Jews] civil rights, I see no remedy [*72] but that their heads should be cut off in one night and replaced with others not containing a single Jewish idea.”

George M. Fredrickson, Racism: An Introduction (Princeton: Princeton UP, 2002), 71-72.

Similar sentiments were expressed in France during this time period. And, of course, this theory of enlightenment universalism is the guiding force behind much of modern Western philosophy in America and Europe — including the “color-blind” theory of race relations and the doctrine of strict separation between Church and State.

Notice how obliterating Jewish distinctiveness was cast as being in accordance with securing human rights — Jews literally had to be destroyed in order to be saved. The evident Christian overtones accentuate the fact that this “liberal” revolution was hardly the break from the past that it used to be — it merely found new language to express its fear of Jewish difference and its desire for Jews to disappear. Given that the “universal” personhood Jews were expected to assimilate into was based on a Christian norm, even the desire for conversion is barely affected. All that changed was the removal of the few protections Jews had when their oppression was strictly theological: at least some Christians theologians had some need for some living Jews — the model expressed here explicitly wanted all Jews to disappear and pointedly chose a very violent metaphor to bring across its point.

It’s no wonder that many post-Holocaust theorists consider the Shoah to be the bastard child of the Enlightenment.

Cross-posted to The Debate Link

On the eve of Martin Luther King Day, Barack Obama spoke on King’s old pulpit at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia. His speech was bold, progressive, and necessary:

For most of this country’s history, we in the African-American community have been at the receiving end of man’s inhumanity to man. And all of us understand intimately the insidious role that race still sometimes plays - on the job, in the schools, in our health care system, and in our criminal justice system.

And yet, if we are honest with ourselves, we must admit that none of our hands are entirely clean. If we’re honest with ourselves, we’ll acknowledge that our own community has not always been true to King’s vision of a beloved community.

We have scorned our gay brothers and sisters instead of embracing them. The scourge of anti-Semitism has, at times, revealed itself in our community. For too long, some of us have seen immigrants as competitors for jobs instead of companions in the fight for opportunity.

As Steve Benen put it, if anybody still thought after the Donnie McClurkin incident that Obama was going to throw gay Americans under the bus, they can lay those fears to bed.

Read the rest of this entry …

Argentina has been doggedly pursuing an investigation linking Iranian officials at the highest levels to the 1994 bombing of a JCC in Buenos Aires. Iran is not happy about this, and has just threatened to lodge a complaint with the ICJ if Argentina doesn’t cease its investigation immediately. It is unclear what legal grounds Iran is relying on for its complaint.

The New York Times: A Rabbi of His Time, With a Charisma That Transcends It

In 1965, after walking in the Selma-to-Montgomery civil-rights march with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel was at the Montgomery, Ala., airport, trying to find something to eat. A surly woman behind the snack-bar counter glared at Heschel — his yarmulke and white beard making him look like an ancient Hebrew prophet — and mockingly proclaimed: “Well, I’ll be damned. My mother always told me there was a Santa Claus, and I didn’t believe her, until now.” She told Heschel that there was no food to be had.

In response, according to a new biography, “Spiritual Radical: Abraham Joshua Heschel in America, 1940-1972” by Edward K. Kaplan (Yale), Heschel simply smiled. He gently asked, “Is it possible that in the kitchen there might be some water?” Yes, she acknowledged. “Is it possible that in the refrigerator you might find a couple of eggs?” Perhaps, she admitted. Well, then, Heschel said, if you boiled the eggs in the water, “that would be just fine.”

She shot back, “And why should I?”

“Why should you?” Heschel said. “Well, after all, I did you a favor.”

“What favor did you ever do me?”

“I proved,” he said, “there was a Santa Claus.”

And after the woman’s burst of laughter, food was quickly served.

(photos on next page)

There was a fight on the Q train. The last car was filled with people rolling toward Brooklyn.

A young man, accompanied by his girlfriend, had just been wished Merry Christmas by another group on the train.

The young man happily answered back with, “Happy Chanukah.”

That’s when all hell broke loose.

One of a group of other young people on the train immediately hiked up his sleeve to reveal a tattoo of Christ. Fourteen men and women jumped the “Happy Chanukah” man, yelling, “He said, ‘Happy Hanukkah, that’s when the Jews killed Jesus…’ dirty Jews and Jew bitches.”

Much screaming, bellowing, blood loss and broken bones later…

The man who said “Happy Chanukah” is Walter Adler, 23, an honors student at Hunter College, who now has a broken nose and a split lip.

He had managed to pull the emergency brake as the train was hurtling toward DeKalb Ave. station

A horde of police came aboard. They arrested 10 people, charging six with assault and four with unlawful assembly.

Two of the men arrested that night have been arrested for race crimes before.

There’s a back-story: In the midst of the melee, Adler thought, “I’m bleeding all over the place, there’s lots of people, why isn’t anyone else doing anything?”

But one stranger on the train had risen to help. And he flailed away for all he was worth to help protect Adler as best he could. A bantam-weight man from Bangladesh. A young soul studying to be an accountant. His name is Hassan Askari. He is 20 years old.

Hassan Askari has two black eyes from the fight. But he also has a new friend. Adler.

Adler says Hassan is a hero. Hassan says his parents taught him to help those in need.

Like many a persons who, when faced with sudden threat, and through whom fierce angels suddenly surge , whatever one would call that Force of those moments of tension, that Force retreats when the threat is past….

leaving just the humble human form standing there, mumbling things like Hassan is saying now, “I just did what I had to do.”

And the ones who assaulted the travelers? Thus far, six were charged with assault, four with unlawful assembly. There may be additional charges.

from the NYPost by Jennifer Fermino, Erika Martinez and Peter Cox

One of those collared straphangers yesterday denied making anti-Semitic taunts and said his mother is Jewish.

Joseph Jirovec, 19 - the son of a city firefighter who is currently serving in Iraq - has pleaded guilty to a 2005 bias crime against blacks.

“We are not racist against Jewish people. That whole hate-crime thing is ridiculous,” Jirovec said.

He claims Adler’s group was drunk and taunted his group, and one yelled, “We killed Jesus.”

Jirovec will soon begin serving six months for his role in the attack against four men in Gerritsen Beach.

“I’m trying to stay out of trouble,” he said. “When I get out, I want to go into the military.”

(I sense what some readers might be thinking. Me too.)

Below are some of the pictures of the alleged attackers:

But, before we go there, just this. As you may have deduced, Hassan the brave Bangladeshi is a Muslim. And of course, Walter Adler is a Jew. And in that effusiveness that is beautiful, and for which many a Semitic person is known, Adler said… “A random Muslim guy jumped in and helped a Jewish guy on Hanukkah - that’s a miracle…”

Let us all who wish to, hold the thought that someday, in our lifetimes, such a matter will NOT be a miracle, that it will instead, be only USUAL and ordinary. And blessed, as always.

Here is a video of Walter Adler (who is no weakling), his heartfelt lady friend, and a gentle Hassan Askari speaking about what happened. Many will like what Askari says about his way of seeing others through his Muslim faith. Many will like what Walter says at the end about transcending all the religious arguments that keep people on ’sides’ rather than in harmony.

Read the rest of this entry »

…before the ten of them started beating up a group of Jews on the Q train in New York City.

The Jewish side of my family lost a number of people in Hitler’s death camps, but for many years there were unconfirmed rumors that a distant cousin — a young boy — had gotten out of the country and was living somewhere. We just didn’t know who he was or where he lived.

Then a few years ago, Foley: The Spy Who Saved 10,000 Jews was published in England. In it, Daily Telegraph correspondent Michael Smith told the story of Frank Foley, an MI6 operative at the British embassy in Berlin in the late 1930s whose cover was passport control officer.

It turned out that Foley, who is touted on the book’s cover as Britain’s Schindler after the legendary Oskar Schindler, managed to arrange transit to New Zealand in 1939 for my cousin, then three years old, and his parents at a time when Jews were, for all intents and purposes, trapped and doomed.

Not coincidental to publication of Foley, my cousin and I finally connected through another family member. A thriving correspondence followed with this most erudite gentleman, a bibliophile and man of the world, lives in a suburb of Wellington, New Zealand, and writes under the pen name of Country Bumpkin.

Mr. Bumpkin has been guest-blogging at Kiko’s House on various goings on — the changing of the seasons in New Zealand, politics, culture and personal reflections. Now 72, he recently returned to Germany for the first time in 68 years. I have excerpted his account here.

It is a touching remembrance of things past and an astute commentary on things present and future.

The Night of The Shattering Glass, otherwise known as Kristallnacht, took place November 9, 1938, marking to that date, the most widespread attack against Jews in peacetime Germany and Austria.

In France, two days prior, a 17 year old Jew had shot a German embassy staffer in retaliation for the egregious treatment of his father and family at the hands of Nazis in Germany.

Hitler seized on that event as opportunity to enact his long planned desire to destroy Jewish houses of worship and the Jews…. parnasah, their ability to make a living.

Thus, on that night, Hitler unleashed his most psychopathic and hate-gorged minions to loot and burn any and every Jewish community in Nazi territory. 267 synagogues were plundered of sacred Torah scrolls, the hand-built temples torched.

100 Jews were murdered whilst trying to defend family and property. 7500 Jewish shops were looted of valuables, left with every window shattered and all remaining fixtures despoiled and set afire.

The Nazi government said the Jews had brought this down upon their own heads, and ordered them to pay one billion marks for the murder of the Embassy staffer in Paris.

The Jews were also charged six million marks to pay for the Nazi’s destruction of their own shops.

Shortly afterward, 25,000 Jewish fathers, rabbis, brothers, sons, students, poets, farmers, sweethearts, and bridegrooms, were dragged from their families, farms, and off the streets.

They were forced to Nazi slave camps, never to be seen again. It was the commencement of an ancient evil, but on a new, relentless scale.

The Nazi plan: To extinguish entire cultural groups, but first to coerce them to become a wage-less workforce for the state’s purposes, until these innocents, unable to work any longer because of starvation and torture, were murdered where they lay.

Near Oswiecim Poland, the Nazis ordered more heatless barracks and factory halls built. Less than eighteen months after Kristallnacht, this death camp, called Auschwitz, was fully packed with blameless souls who were rendered into a river of blood. This flood of humanity was bled out day and night without cease for the next four years.

Kristallnacht stands as one of the central flashpoints… one so large that for those who had the eyes or heart to see it, it could be registered around the world. It was Kristallnacht that catalyzed the Nazi’s spreading stain across Europe and Russia.

The sick psychological ideas underlying the arsons of Kristallnacht leapt from dry mind to dry mind until the malicious ideas caught on that mental tinderwood in each man’s darkest mind, and there, broke into flame, fueling ever more death.

By 1938, Dachau had already been rendering human bones and blood for six years. Now were added six more houses of slaughter in Poland alone, including Auschwitz.

In the years prior, Hitler had ordered Germany’s doctors to euthanize tens of thousands of German children, Jews and non-Jews alike, who were in some way lame or halt, and that ‘operation’ was carried out in full, emptying sanitoriums and orphanages even as many German physicians protested vociferously.

But, death and disposal of ‘inconvenient humans’ had become not only the pattern of the collective unconscious of a nation, but an insatiable hunger. The legends of the vampire do not spring up from a soul being lost.

The oldest vampire legends spring up around those who have murdered, and thereby a ’switch has been thrown’ in them; they developed a blood lust to Read the rest of this entry »

The US House of Representatives is discussing ENDA right now and you can watch it on C-SPAN. You can contact Rep. Mark Souder, a Republican from Indiana’s 3rd District, HERE.

Dear Rep. Souder,

I lived and voted in the State of Indiana for 24 years, from 1976-2000, graduated from IU and am a former employee of the State of Indiana. I moved back to Ohio in 2000 and am both safer and happier here then I ever was in Indiana.

I have C-SPAN on for the ENDA discussion (an independent consultant, I work out of my home). Listening to what you just said, I am willing to bet that, as a heterosexual Christian, you have not experienced 1/100 of the un-American discrimination and abuse I have faced as a Jewish lesbian.

I am a religious person and apparently you are too. Since the Jewish community has far more civilized views on our GLBT members than much of the Christian community has of its GLBT members, suggest that YOU educate yourself by attending church services this Sunday at an MCC or one of the many other gay-friendly churches. You might learn something about true Christianity there.

Controversial conservative author, icon and columnist Ann Coulter is in hot water again — and this time she’s accused of being anti-Semitic.

Coulter has been denounced before. In fact, most Americans are already free members of the Ann Coulter Outrage Of The Month Club, with a new edition of outrage usually shipped right around the time she has a new book coming out.

But this time you wonder if she’s going to recover as quickly because at issue is less bomb throwing — if you watch the video (below) it doesn’t seem like she’s trying to create controversy and even tries to clarify her comments after the commercial — than showing a fundamental attitude that many people who are Jewish (and who aren’t) will interpret as antisemitism.

Not all Jews will feel that way, of course. Her Jewish allies on the right will say they know she isn’t anti-Semitic, defend her, spin the words on the video (and the utter, visible consternation of the Jewish host that heard her say them). Why? Because she blasts liberals (whom they hate) and Democrats (whom they hate). So she needs to be defended and her comments need to be explained away (or, better yet, attack those who are criticizing her ).

The irony remains: this time Coulter truly did NOT seem to be trying to throw a bomb to sell books. She was just explaining what she felt — that Jews were not “perfect” and suggested that if they were they’d be Christians (like her).

What is likely to be Coulter’s authentic case of foot-in-mouth rather than her standard foot-shoved-up-someone’s-you-know-what came on CNBC

Appearing on Donny Deutsch’s CNBC show, “The Big Idea,” on Monday night, columnist/author Ann Coulter suggested that the U.S. would be a better place if there weren’t any Jewish people and that they needed to “perfect” themselves into — Christians.

It led Deutsch to suggest that surely she couldn’t mean that, and when she insisted she did, he said this sounded “anti-Semitic.”

Asked by Deutsch whether she wanted to be like “the head of Iran” and “wipe Israel off the Earth,” Coulter stated: “No, we just want Jews to be perfected, as they say. … That’s what Christianity is. We believe the Old Testament.”

Deutsch told E&P’s sibling magazine, Adweek, today, “I was offended. And then, and this was interesting, she started to back off and seemed a little upset.”

Asked to gauge her reaction, Deutsch said, “I think she got frightened that maybe she had crossed a line, that this was maybe a faux pas of great proportions. I mean, did it show ignorance? Anti-Semitism? It wasn’t just one of those silly things.”

Readers are urged to watch the segment on the You Tube below and judge for themselves. Make sure you sit through the commercials and watch it through to the end.

Our view? She was not trying to whip up sales for a book but showed disdain for Jews — even though she insisted it wasn’t — that could further limit her audience and could impact her speaking appearances.

How bad is it? This bad:

The National Jewish Democratic Council launched on an online petition to CNN, Fox News, NBC, CBS and ABC urging them to no longer use her as a commentator. “While Ms. Coulter has her freedom of speech, you have the freedom to exercise better judgment,” the petition says. “You wouldn’t put people who claim Martians roam the earth to frequently comment on science. It is time to stop putting Ms. Coulter on the air to comment on politics, thus giving her free publicity and attention.”

Shmuel Rosner, U.S. correspondent for the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz, kills Coulter with snark in a post titled: ‘Is it okay for Ann Coulter to want all Jews to become Christian?”

Blogging can sometimes be a silly business. For example, when one has to deal with controversies over things that were said by commentator Ann Coulter. Nevertheless, people say she’s an influential celebrity, so we have to take her words seriously. I’ll try, but I have to warn you that it won’t be easy.

He then lists the various ways people react to Coulter.

How REALLY REALLY bad is it for Ann Coulter?

Bad enough that the lively Republican mega-blog Red State contains a post that says this:

With all the phony kerfuffle over the phony Limbaugh comments last week, here comes Ann Coulter with guns-a-blazing — basically sounding the al-Qaida line against infidels…only this time about Jews and Christianity.

I’m sure a lot of you are fans of her. But she basically needs to shut up and go away forever.

There’s more so here’s a big chunk:

She’s said that we should ponder murdering Supreme Court justices…wished that the 9/11 attackers had targeted the New York Times building rather than the WTC…and various other just dazzlingly odious things. Yes, I realize that usually she’s just trying to be irreverent and perversely humorous.

But there’s just nothing funny about these things. There’s nothing funny about a “we must convert you” mentality about religion in an age where we’re fighting people to the death who take that very outlook extremely seriously. There’s nothing funny about poisoning high officials’ desserts for political gain.

Every Republican candidate for office needs to denounce her, and right quick, and never have the slightest bit to do with her again. She’s gone too far — and it’s not the first time.

The problem:

It will never happen.

Already there are rumblings among some on the right from people who are trying to a) defend her, b) rationalize her comments, c) say she didn’t really mean what she said and point to her comments right after the commercial (which many Jews and her interviewer feel confirm her attitude).

If you think about it, this has been a catastrophic week for people on the far-right in America in terms of winning over people to their side.

First, there is a major political attack on a 12-year-old kid and his family because the boy dared to counter President George Bush’s speech on Bush’s children’s health care veto. The spectacle was denounced by Democrats, many independents and turned the stomachs of some non-lockstep Republicans.

Now you have Coulter saying that Jews — who do vote — need to be perfected and suggesting that the United States would be more Utopian if only Judaism didn’t exist.

The problem for the Republican Party: it is chasing away voters and, by 2008, could find that it has lost soccer moms (they have kids and are struggling with health care), chasing away Jews (will Coulter’s comments be condemned by GOPers and, if not, will the Democrats use a clip of her comments with her appearing before adoring Republican audiences or with GOP candidates or use them in fund-raising letters to Jewish voters?).

What will likely happen?

–Outrage will continue.

–She’ll still be on Fox News and pack conservative crowds in when she speaks.

–She’ll further explain it and Rush, Sean, Hannity, Mark and others will blast the “liberals” supposedly upset about this only because she is a conservative.

–Some conservative Jewish talk show hosts will defend her and this will be pointed to by her supporters and sympathetic weblogs. You might call this the Some Of My Best Friends Are Perceived As Bigots defense.

But if Maureen Dowd had said that about Jews? Or if Barbra Streisand had said that about Christians? Those who are defending and will defend Coulter would be screaming for their scalps on a plate. But they won’t when it comes to Coulter because she’s on their “team.”

Still, the bottom line is that this time Coulter did NOT throw a bomb.

She just spoke her mind (which showed what was inside of her).

Which was worse.

WATCH THE VIDEO AND MAKE UP YOUR OWN MIND:

BUT THAT’S JUST OUR VIEW. HERE’S A CROSS-SECTION OF SOME OTHER VIEWPOINTS:

–Mac’s Mind says Coulter is right:
Read the rest of this entry »

If being “perfect” means being like you, I’ll pass on it, thank you…