Michelle Goldberg’s Jewish Problem, and Ours
What if the ban on circumcision introduced as legislation in San Francisco had passed? (Yesterday the Appeals Court removed it from the ballot) Would turning Jews into criminals because they had their children circumcised get Goldberg to accept the very real threat to Jews that comes from the precincts of the Left?
When, she asks, did Jews ever vote in a significant amount for a Republican? She answers that the largest percentage of Jews did so in 1920, when Warren G. Harding won the presidential race in a landslide. But even then, she writes, while 42 percent of American Jews voted for Harding, a significant 38 percent voted for the Socialist Party candidate, Eugene V. Debs.
That figure tells us something significant about Jews and the Left, although she does not realize it. Goldberg does not break down which Jews in which states voted for Harding. I suspect that it was already settled German Jews from earlier periods of immigration who were voting Republican. Most likely recent immigrants from Eastern Europe and Russia, living in the Jewish ghetto in the Lower East Side of New York, most of them readers of the Yiddish socialist daily The Forward, are the ones who voted for Debs. They came to America finding only poverty and lack of work outside of the sweatshops in the garment trade, and they came to the new country with their anarchist and socialist ideologies intact. Now, their ancestors are generations removed—either in the middle or upper middle class, or among the very rich. Yet, the legacy of those first years of their grandparents’ life in America motivates their vote, no matter what their own situation.
Goldberg continues to complain about the support of Israel by Christian Evangelicals. She is worried that their desire is to destroy Judaism and gain converts to Christianity, and hence she believes what most American Jews worry about over everything else is Evangelical support for Israel. She writes:
That fact is, many American Jews might consider voting for “someone else,” but only a fraction would consider voting for the type of person that the GOP is likely to nominate. American Jews have shown, again and again, that they care more about social justice and a defense of American pluralism than a zealous defense of Israeli maximalism. They might get anxious about liberal criticism of Israel, but this anxiety tends to pale beside their abhorrence of the Christian right.
One problem is Goldberg’s concept of “maximalism.” Anyone who heard Reverend Hagee at AIPAC’s convention a few years ago found that he received a huge ovation from the entire audience, many of them undoubtedly liberals and Democrats. They did not find his reasons for support of Israel maximalist; nor did they seem upset that they had CUFI actively lobbying Congress in support of Israel. Indeed, the AIPAC delegates seem pleased that more Christians were coming to Israel’s defense.
Of course, I suspect that Goldberg considers Obama’s views on Israel as pro-Israel, and subscribes herself to the phony J-Street mantra of being pro-Israel and pro-peace. And as one would expect, her proof of the Jewish vote staying with Obama is the emergence of Michele Bachmann, whom at this point, is more than unlikely to be the Republican nominee for President. Hence, she hopes for a Romney-Bachmann ticket, which as she knows, would make it certain that urban secular Jewish voters would not vote the Republican ticket.
As long as liberal American Jews read and take the advice of someone like Michelle Goldberg, who shows that her dislike for conservatives motivates her far more than any fear that Islamic radicalism and the threat of an Iranian nuclear bomb gives very real cause for concern to Jews all over the world, those Jews should not be surprised when a candidate they vote for, like Barack Obama, moves to “throw Israel under the bus.” The only way that situation will change is if American Jews take the advice of the old 1940s Zionist leader Abba Hillel Silver, who argued that Jews should be independent, not tied to one political party, and if a Republican candidate is better, they should vote for that person.
Until American Jews show that kind of wisdom, they deserve getting bad advice from the Michelle Goldbergs in the media.
Michelle Goldberg openly advocates on behalf of promiscuity. She is thoroughly secular. This is the number one reason why such an individual is hostile towards conservatives. All the other alleged excuses are mere rationalizations. Their embrace of a secularist agenda carries over into other areas like the defense of the West and Israel. Goldberg is also a very poorly educated young lady who obviously obtained a phony degree. Grade inflation is the norm today. The Goldbergs don’t have to earn their credentials in the softer disciplines. They just have to please their left-wing professors.
“Goldberg attributes his [Brevivik's] actions to none other than his supposed belief in Zionism!”
She does nothing of the sort. She only states quite rightly that Brevivik considered himself an ardent Zionist, although she also quotes him as warning his comrades against the “nation-wrecking multiculturalist Jew” – a phrase that RR himself might adopt, considering his views.
RR: ‘Jews should not be surprised when a candidate they vote for, like Barack Obama, moves to “throw Israel under the bus.”’
They should also not be surprised when the Right misrepresents Obama’s views. Recently, for example, I received a robo-call from the Republican Jewish Coalition, asking for my opinion of Obama’s Mideast peace plan, which the call said was based on Israel’s “indefensible” ’67 borders. Not a word about land swaps. Surprise, surprise.
Readers should also take note of the following in RR’s blog:
“What if the ban on circumcision introduced as legislation in San Francisco had passed? … Would turning Jews into criminals because they had their children circumcised get Goldberg to accept the very real threat to Jews that comes from the precincts of the Left?”
Of course, the “real threat” of this legislation was also aimed a Moslems, but including them would dull the point of RR’s attack.
The November 2009 Clinton statement in its entirety said:
“We believe that through good-faith negotiations the parties can mutually agree on an outcome which ends the conflict and reconciles the Palestinian goal of an independent and viable state based on the 1967 lines, with agreed swaps, and the Israeli goal of a Jewish state with secure and recognized borders that reflect subsequent developments and meet Israeli security requirements.”
Hence, the President’s statement fairly can be read as only adopting the “Palestinian goal.”
These are Palestinian goals? Then what do you imagine are Israeli goals? No land swaps? Actually, if these were indeed the goals of the Palestinians, peace would have been achieved a long time ago.
Joseph: The proponents of the San Francisco circumcision ban issued a propanganda comic book, which portrayed “Captain Foreskin” defending baby boys from “Monster Mohel”. So tell me again how this was “also aimed at Moslems”.
Well y’see, Rich, Moslems also circumcise their male babies. So maybe a comic book doesn’t tell the whole story.
the proponents knew that, y’see, that’s why their comic book does tell the whole story
Well, y’see, that’s why the comic book does tell the whole story.
Hard to counter comic book arguments. Maybe this will make it clear: The proposed law would have criminalized circumcision regardless of the religion of the child and regardless of any comic book. Period.
Even had a ban on circumcision become law, Jews and Muslims alike would not have obeyed it.
However, enforcement of the law — arresting offenders, trying them in court, punishing them — to the extent it were possible at all, would have been confined to Jewish offenders exclusively, for two simple reasons:
1. San Francisco would be scared shitless to arrest and prosecute Muslim offenders.
2. The law couldn’t say so, but was aimed at Jews, as the propaganda cartoon brazenly showed.
In any case, San Francisco would soon learn to be be scared shitless to arrest or prosecute Jews also.
Even if a ban on circumcision did become law, Jews and Muslims alike would not have obeyed it.
However, enforcement of the law — arresting offenders, trying them in court, punishing them — to the extent it were
possible at all, would have been confined to Jewish offenders exclusively, for two simple reasons:
1. San Francisco would be afraid to arrest and prosecute Muslim offenders.
2. The law couldn’t say so, but it was aimed at Jews, as the propaganda cartoon brazenly showed.
“… enforcement of the law … would have been confined to Jewish offenders exclusively….”
Nothing like a little crystal ball gazing to buttress your argument – an argument that doesn’t get stronger by being repeated twice (although it was a good idea to remove the threatening sentence).
Ronnie: it would be well to remember that seder’s (if not the first) have been celebrated in the White House during the Obama administration. Not only is this intrinsically significant, it is noteworthy because of the (legitimate) irredentist sentiments of the Passover celebration.
Hey Hank: Given Obama’s unprecedented anti-Israel history why isn’t it more reasonable to assume that this “seder” in the White House was either a cheap PR ploy or part of the movement by leftist Jews to capture the symbol of the seder on behalf of their causes?
When I saw pictures of Obama “celebrating” the seder I thought, “hmmm … Pharaoh gives a seder”.
Hank, perhaps you can give your thoughts as to how Obama interprets the prayer and vow, “Next Year In Jerusalem!”? In the event you have never been to an authentic seder, it is the climax of the evening.
Since some readers may have taken RR at face value and neglected to read Goldberg’s piece, I think it’s important to emphasize the following:
‘While Jean-Marie Le Pen, the founder of France’s ultraright Front National, is a Holocaust denier, his daughter and successor, Marine Le Pen, is working to cleanse the party of its reputation for Jew hatred, telling the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that it “has always been Zionistic.” In the early 1990s, the British National Party organized a violent neo-Nazi gang called Combat 18. In 2009, the party’s leader, Nick Griffin, boasted that his was the only British party to support Israel’s war “against the terrorists” in Gaza.
‘Earlier this year, Newsweek ran a story about this phenomenon titled “Europe’s Extreme Righteous: Far-right European politicians find love—and common cause—in Israel.” It opened with three politicians, “a Belgian politician known for his contacts with SS veterans, an Austrian with neo-Nazi ties, and a Swede whose political party has deep roots in Swedish fascism,” visiting the Holocaust museum Yad Vashem. They met with members of the Knesset and signed something called the Jerusalem declaration, which affirmed, “We stand at the vanguard in the fight for the Western, democratic community” against the “totalitarian threat” of Islamic fundamentalism.’
If RR sees fit to make common cause with Geert Wilders, the British National Party, Le Pin’s party, etc., that’s his business. But most Jews will understand that sometimes my enemy’s enemy is also my enemy.