You make up 11 percent of the seats in the United States Congress. You make up one-third of all Nobel laureates. So many notions that are embraced by this nation that particularly emanate from over 5,000 years of Jewish history, tradition and culture: independence, individualism, fairness, decency, justice, charity.
“You can’t talk about the civil rights movement in this country without talking about Jewish freedom riders and Jack Greenberg,” he said, telling a story about seeing a group of Jewish activists at a segregated movie theater in Delaware. “You can’t talk about the women’s movement without talking about Betty Friedan” or American advances in science and technology without mentioning Einstein and Carl Sagan, or music and Gershwin, Bob Dylan and “so, so, so many other people.”
“I believe what affects the movements in America, what affects our attitudes in America are as much the culture and the arts as anything else,” he said. That’s why he spoke out on gay marriage “apparently a little ahead of time.”
“It wasn’t anything we legislatively did. It was ‘Will and Grace,’ it was the social media. Literally. That’s what changed peoples’ attitudes. That’s why I was so certain that the vast majority of people would embrace and rapidly embrace” gay marriage, Biden said.
“Think behind of all that, I bet you 85 percent of those changes, whether it’s in Hollywood or social media are a consequence of Jewish leaders in the industry. The influence is immense, the influence is immense. And, I might add, it is all to the good,” he said.
Jews have also been key to the evolution of American jurisprudence, he continued, namedropping Brandeis, Fortas, Frankfurter, Cardozo, Ginsberg, Breyer, Kagan. “You literally can’t. You can’t talk about the recognition of … rights in the Constitution without looking at these incredible jurists that we’ve had.”
“Jewish heritage has shaped who we are – all of us, us, me – as much or more than any other factor in the last 223 years. And that’s a fact,” he said.
It’s been picked up by the Times of Israel and Haaretz, the latter saying that Biden praised Jewish leaders for helping change American attitudes about gay marriage.
Writes Bruce Wolman:
Guess who is running for President? This is about the worst pandering I’ve ever seen. Gays didn’t drive gay marriage, Jews in Hollywood and on the internet did. Is Joe sacrificing the Orthodox vote?
Didn’t Beiden effectively say, at the last AIPAC conference, that we must rubber-stamp Israel, continue to pour endless US $, blood, sweat, n tears into Israel, because Israel is the only safe haven from latent goy anti-semitism around the world, including in America, which is 98% goy? Yes he did. BTW, David Duke and S MacDonald would agree with Beiden on the very disproportionate influence of our 2% of Jews on America’s values, and goals.… Read more »
Hey, what about me?
– Red Auerbach (from beyond)
Call me cynical but didn’t Jews benefit from the Civil Rights Movement too?
I believe if you add in half-Jews, the nobel laureates inches up to 50 %.
The only real industry that matters in this case is our big print and broadcast media. Everything else pales in comparison.