Jonah image from this site
Yesterday we posted on Pittsburgh 11th-grader Jesse Lieberfeld’s MLK Day essay likening Israel to the segregated south and his determination to oppose Israelism within the Jewish community. The piece was a winner in Carnegie Mellon’s essay contest and was republished by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, praise the lord. Well, Elder of Ziyon is as het up about the piece as I am thrilled. The 170-odd comments on his post on Lieberfeld reflect the deep anxiety among Zionists over young American Jews’ defection from Israel.
With apologies to commenters for not using their handles, here are some of the choice responses to Lieberfeld at Elder’s site.
Elder, the answer isn’t to post this here, he will never see it. I would suggest writing a response to the newspaper itself. Looks like the kid knew he was in for a lot of condemnation, he made his social networking accounts private or deleted them entirely very recently because I was able to access a limited cached version of his Facebook account….
By the way, he goes to a better than thou iron gates private school, argueably the most prestigious in Pittsburgh. …
agreed. I have already sent a letter to the paper.
….This essay contest was actually sponsored by Carnegie Mellon University, if you click through all the links. The last link, which has a contact person, is here….
I’d love to hear the rabbi’s side of the story. High school juniors don’t make up deluded radical political views off the top of their heads. Somebody’s been feeding him anti-Israel, anti-Semitic propaganda, and my guess is that anybody who’s discussed this stuff with him–his rabbi, for instance–knows exactly who the culprit is…
The whole thing could be fake. “Jesse” could be a committee of writers…
Why bother Elder. This is just a Progressive Jew spouting the hatred taught in the Progressive Synagogues and schools. His parents will be very proud of this self-hatred…
This is one kid, out of a million who have the opposite view. His essay is meaningless, because he himself admits that he does not comprehend the conflict. He certainly does not comprehend Arab culture, or Islam. And the article could be fake….
I find it interesting that the Pittsburgh Post Gazette times constitutional tribune would choose an essay on Israel, Jews, and zionism for a reflection on………..Martin Luther King Day. What the hell does one have to do with the other? MLK was a freakin zionist….
The probability is very poor that you will reach him since only 41% of Jews in the US believe without a doubt that there is a God. Unless a fish finds him, chews on him and spits him out; the next opportunity to reach such a person is when they are at least 30 years of age….
Just wondering…. Subsitute Jewish with say Muslim, or American. Would they have printed on a kid from any other nationality rejecting his origins because of perceived misdeeds?…
Jewess: I’m having a very difficult time with the logic and sincerity in this letter. It is really hard to imagine that an obviously intelligent and articulate young writer form a Jewish home (where every holiday and tradition was forced on him) is unable to learn about Israel from his rabbi, his parents, or on his own. How could he fail to find the facts about Jewish history, Zionism and the modern state that is so richly available online or in a public library? How could he publicly divorce himself from his people in an essay that on one hand, begs for answers to his questions, but on the other, condemns Israel for murder without the missing information? J’accuse!…
I think its a fake … It sounds like what a non Jew imagines its like growing up in a Jewish house. But some of it rings very hollow.”the perfect society of Israel.”…
I did a Google search for “Jesse Lieberfeld” and I’ve rarely seen this many entries return … there are pages and pages and pages of sites carrying this story. This was a very damaging story on many levels and will be used over and over to vilify Israel and Jews.
I only found two entries that had nothing to do with this current story.
In 2008 as a seventh grader, he wrote a piece reviewing an art show that the Gazette published when he went to the Kentucky Avenue School, and a picture of a sign he took when he was in Dublin this summer. Its sounding more and more like a child of wealth who has little connection with Jews and Israel other then being born Jewish and given a Jewish sounding name and has used his “Jewishness” as a badge of legitimacy to bash – and bash he’s done
Elder of ziyon is a settler. Settlers only do Torah. They don’t do reason. They need a Reformation! And a Renaissance !
Very quickly you see the deep-seated hatred Zionists have for people within ‘the Jewish tribe’ (their construct) who differ from them politically.
These comments could have easily come from the racist, ex-IDF colonial soldier, eee.
Notice how the begin mocking his education background and his supposed privilege – as if that is somehow a consideration into his views. How many Zionist intellectuals, politicians, businessman are filthy rich? Yet, the trolls in the comments section would never bring THEIR wealthy up.
It’s a rendition of ‘How to make a case for Israel’ via JSF.
When I read comments made by Zionist Jews, I think of a petty schoolyard argument with instigators hurling obscene curse-words and the like. Viewing it as a non-Jew and as an outsider to the parties of this conflict – I believe these people are schizophrenics. Very very upset, schizophrenics.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jan/16/lse-nazi-games-antisemitic-acceptable
“Antisemitic discourse is more acceptable now than at any time since the 1930s”
What a joke . Compared to the 1940s ? And how many Jews are in Gitmo again ?
At what point did the Israel in “Hear o hear Israel” become the state?
The last comment (paraphrasing) –
“A non-authentic Jewish critic using his “Jewishness”…”
What is an authentic Jewish critic?