Richard
I’m glad you started your own blog, I have enjoyed your comments for quite some time now. I actually like to read Mondoweiss. It does attract its share of interesting characters and from them I’ve gained a deeper appreciation and respect for my Orthodox background, which I could not have found anywhere else. On behalf of my dad, I credit Phil for being the first person who made the idea of marrying another jew desirable for me-when I think of future marriage prospects I can’t decide who I want to P’O more-Phil or my dad
On a more serious note, Mondoweiss was destined to fail. Apart from his colorful commenters, Phil embraced “the Palestinian cause” with heavy emotional bagage, his own set of issues. He clearly has ulterior motives and has his own set agenda for American jews particularly those of my generation. I don’t understand his beef with the jewish day school movement or his fascination with intermarriage and was quite disappointed when he gloated when the day school movement lost hundreds of million with Madoff or when he celebrates the intermarriages of prominent jews who he has never met. He does make a lot of blanket generalizations particularly about jews of my generation, which he should steer clear of completely and focus on prominent Jewish Baby Boomers or those of previous generations. I am quite pleased you asked him that question on his biases against jews who self identify and practice openly and hope that he has the decency to not skirt your questions.
Then there’s this, from David Frum’s site, sent to me by Reuven Singer, who dislikes this site. Author, Ken Kurson:
In the mid 1990s, I worked at United Feature Syndicate — think Peanuts, Jack Anderson, Dilbert and Miss Manners. I edited newspaper columns on everything from business advice by Bruce Williams (“I wish you well, my friend”) to bridge strategy by Philip Alder. Another of my assignments included selecting articles from the New York Observer for national syndication, mostly Andrew Sarris and Hilton Kramer.
I was drawn to the over-the-top way one Observer writer, Philip Weiss, would go after the Clintons, so I approached my boss, Diana Loevy, about breaking Weiss out as a star. He had all the qualities that make a good columnist: strong reporter, terrific writer, highly opinionated, a bomb-thrower. Diana replied with the frankness for which she was famous: “What to do about Philip Weiss? Great writer. But he’s crazy.”
This assessment occurred years before Weiss became the nation’s foremost Jewish critic of Jews, a blogger version of Walter Lippman.
Then there’s this, from David Frum’s site, sent to me by Reuven Singer, who dislikes this site. Author, Ken Kurson: