[Photo from Jiser's Flickr collection]
Yesterday Adam Horowitz did a great post here about Rabbi Brant Rosen's beautiful group, Rabbis Speak Out! condemning the Gaza massacres. Adam pointed out that Rabbi David Saperstein of the Reform Jews is not on the list. While Rabbi Josh Boettiger is. I need to talk about these two rabbis for a moment.
I saw Saperstein at a big conclave on Progressive Jews and the war last fall defending Reform Judaism's collapse on the Iraq war in 2002. I didn't know who he was; and I found his manner grating. He spoke angrily and defensively, using a lot of Hebrew expressions. When noble Elizabeth Holtzman rose to say in plain English that Jewish neoconservatives in high places had helped to bring this war on us, and the Jewish community must examine this if it wants to heal itself, Saperstein brushed that idea off.
And now this man who was a featured speaker at "Jews Uniting to End the War & Heal America" has nothing to say about Iraq's offspring, the Gaza slaughter. Of course.
According to Wikipedia, Saperstein is married to Ellen Weiss, vice president for news at NPR. That's my mother's name; and I can imagine that Ellen Weiss says all the right things about the Iraq War and maybe Gaza too. Anyone else's marriage is hard to fathom, though I've noticed that people tend to share political values. And of course I also wonder how much of Saperstein's wolf-in-sheep's-clothing-neoconservatism affected his wife's views of the Iraq War, and Gaza, and how that affected NPR's coverage. Ms. Weiss, I'd love to talk to you about this. Because, believe me, if there was anything like this connection with the religious right in our public life, NPR would be on it. If a Christian in public life was married to someone who had a religious view of the good wars in the Middle East--we would talk about it.
As to Josh Boettiger, he is, famously the great-grandson of Eleanor Roosevelt and FDR. The New York Times did an article about him becoming a rabbi. Not knowing anything about Boettiger's story, I know that it goes into the important category of Philosemitism. The United States has, in the last generation, fallen in love with Jews, and who can blame the United States? We're smart, we're funny, we care about close-knit family, etc. Oh, and we're the richest group by religious category. That obviously has something to do with the 62 percent intermarriage rate, for Jews under age 35.
What intrigues me about Boettiger, though, is that he did not grow up with an ethnocentric charge--Is it good for the Jews?--as so many Jews did, that attitude that Saperstein radiates, and he is obviously bringing his worldly background to the Rabbis Speak Out group. Their website is down, but I'm sure I'd find a lot of worldly rabbis, or a few anyway, whom he is now joining. Universalist Jews. A minority in Jewish life, but an insurgent minority.
So I'd pose this simple question about power in America: Which Jew is more outside the American establishment? Saperstein, the pro-war rabbi of the leading religious organization who is married to the news vp of NPR? Or Boettiger, the great grandson of Eleanor Roosevelt? The answer is Boettiger, and it challenges Jews to reckon with their new status in the power structure and its consequences. (Phil Weiss)
More details emerge from Gaza in Barbara Lubin's latest MECA newsletter:
"I entered the Gaza Strip on Wednesday night with my friend and fellow activist Sharon Wallace after waiting ten hours at the Egypt/Gaza. The destruction and trauma is even greater than I expected.
"In just two short days I met with families who were given minutes to evacuate their homes and are now living in overcrowded UN schools; I saw the ruins of bombed greenhouses; I looked out the window at fields and roads torn up by the tread of Israeli tanks; and I visited two universities where MECA supports students with scholarships-severely damaged by Israeli bombs.
"Out of all the devastation I have seen so far, there is one story in particular that I think the world needs to hear. I met a mother who was at home with her ten children when Israeli soldiers entered the house. The soldiers told her she had to choose five of her children to "give as a gift to Israel." As she screamed in horror they repeated the demand and told her she could choose or they would choose for her. Then these soldiers murdered five of her children in front of her. The concept of "Jewish morality" is truly dead. We can be fascists, terrorists, and Nazis just like everybody else.
…
"I talked to people on the street who told stories of wild dogs coming to eat their dead neighbors, relatives bleeding to death because Israel would not allow emergency workers into the area, and Israeli soldiers entering homes to beat and kill."
The concept of "Jewish morality" is truly dead. We can be fascists, terrorists, and Nazis just like everybody else. Just not in a Hollywood movie, or on TV, or anywhere in the MSM. Nor in any influential
think tank, nor in the halls of Congress, nor in the White House except double locked and barred in a tiny closet in its cellar.
Besides, everyone knows who the enemy of civilization and justice is, and what he or she looks like. We get it. How could we not? It's shown to us everywhere we look.
The United States has, in the last generation, fallen in love with Jews, and who can blame the United States? We're smart, we're funny, we care about close-knit family, etc. Oh, and we're the richest group by religious category.
Despite the clever auto-debunk at the end, I think you are still making the would-be media maven's mistake of assuming that what the mass media tell you Americans think or feel is even remotely related to what they really think or feel. This mistake is often compounded by the naive habit of believing what people say in opinion surveys.
Indians (hindu and muslim) are actually richer. Sikhs in particular.
No doubt there are horrible stories about abuses and innocents being killed in Gaza, but don't forget that there is a strong historical record of BOTH Israelis and Palestinians lying about what took place. Jenin is a perfect example.
There's more than a little truth in what Rowan says. However, cross-over country does not matter in the USA as a practical matter, especially as to foreign policy in the MIddle East–except in regards
Christian Zionists, a substantial community of zealots. The educated middle class and up goys slowly realize jews have no special claim
to morality or goodness, or even warmth, but by the time they really know this by experience their job is on the line if they dare protest
the basically singe party line on the issue of Israel. They are then
neutered by their attachment to economic privilege. On the other end, the white-trash end, Obama's man Reich has just publicly stated that the public works aspect of the stimulus package
should be more concerned with skin color than a well-built bridge; don't want to give benefit to "white construction workers."
Jenin is not a perfect example. An Israeli general was one of the first, if not the first (I'd have to go back and look) to say that there were hundreds dead in Jenin and the Palestinians outside naturally picked this up and for a short time it was widely accepted. Then people went into Jenin, in particular Human Rights Watch, and found that the death toll was about 50, roughly 20 of them civilians, and there were war crimes and cases of deliberate murder that had occurred. Just not on the scale originally thought.
But it was more wartime hysteria and natural exaggeration rather than deliberate lying.
D.
Thank you. Ludin's report is blood-curdling.
It is not a lie to claim that the IOF, or 'IDF' as it hypocritically calls itself, committed a gratuitous massacre in Jenin. Nor is it a lie to claim that 'universal skeptic' is just another fraud, of course.
"The United States has, in the last generation, fallen in love with Jews, and who can blame the United States? "
I must disagree here. The Jewish establishment, being the most powerful of the power blocs in America, fell in love with itself. The goy establishments and their various individual members have just been following along in order to keep status, title and wealth.
If a Christian in public life was married to someone who had a religious view of the good wars in the Middle East–we would talk about it.
If NPR's news director was married to a theologically and politically liberal minister (an Episcopalian, say) who supported the Iraq war we would talk about it? No we wouldn't.