Category Archives: Judaism & Jews

An American Rabbi Who Can Reason: The Ten Commandments, Killing, and Murder

Christianity, GUNS, Hebrew Testament, Judaism & Jews, Justice, Law, Reason, Religion

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“American Rabbis For Israel First” wiped the floor with two feeble-minded rabbis. Admittedly—and by virtue of being publicity hounds—the rabbis had already self-selected into a pretty odious social-group sample.

Thus, when I retired (to bed), a few nights back, with the commentary of Rabbi Dovid Bendory, rabbinic director of Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership—I expected little by way of intellectual fare, given the mostly liberal rabbis we’re accustomed to enduring in the public eye. Their impetus is invariably emotional, not intellectual.

Indeed, Jews, who’re usually an analytical lot, have also been infected with the contempt for reason running throughout society. “Curricula in schools emphasize the non-analytical. The media convey emotionalism. Religious institutions junk doctrine for feel-goodism, and what goes for compassion is really sappy sentimentality.” (From “Why Read Return To Reason.”)

Understanding liberty, of course, demands reason (again, from “Why Read Return To Reason”):

In the introduction to F.A. Hayek’s “The Road to Serfdom,” economist Milton Friedman puts his finger on the backdrop to the growth of collectivism: “The argument for collectivism is simple if false; it is an immediate emotional argument. The argument for individualism is subtle and sophisticated; it is an indirect rational argument.”

In his biblically based argument against pacifism, and in defense of a “righteous killing,” Rabbi Bendory demonstrates a command of Hebrew grammar as well as impressive deductive, analytical thinking. In particular was I intrigued by Rabbi Bendory’s distinction, bolstered by references or the absence thereof in scripture, between retzach (murder) and hariga (killing).

Essentially, JPFO’s rabbinic director argues that the Sixth Commandment enjoins against murder, not necessarily against killing, and that, translated, the Hebrew Lo tirtzach! “has a clear and unequivocal meaning:

“Do not murder,” and not do not kill.

Read “The Ten Commandments, Killing, and Murder”: A Detailed Commentary by Rabbi Dovid Bendory, Rabbinic Director, Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership.

UPDATED: American Rabbis For Israel First (Good Column; Back Page On WND)

Ilana Mercer, Israel, Judaism & Jews, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Morality, Nationhood, Paleolibertarianism

“American Rabbis For Israel First” is the current column, now on WND. An excerpt:

“Here is an angry and cogent Israeli response to incessant provocation and violence, and one of the factors that triggered the Gaza campaign,” wrote a reader. In his missive, the reader had attached an article for my edification. Chief among the problems with the article is that its author, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, is not an Israeli. Rabbi Boteach is an American. Online, he describes himself as “‘America’s Rabbi,’ whom The Washington Post calls ‘the most famous Rabbi in America.”

Rabbi Boteach’s Huffington Post defense of Israel titled “Fed Up With Dead Jews” is thus not an “Israeli” response to the latest flare-up between Hamas and Israel, but a Jewish-American one.

Mistaking a Jewish-American defense of Israel for an “Israeli” one is understandable. When it comes to things Israel, very many American Jews sound like Israelis. While one would expect an Israeli to vigorously defend his homeland, in theory and in practice, one does not expect an American—Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist or Baha’i—to defend the interests of a foreign country, with the intensity ordinarily reserved for one’s own.

In “Fed Up,” Rabbi Boteach inveighs: “We have every right to be fed-up. No nation should have to live like this. No nation should have to die like this. … what we do know is that the option of dead Jews is no longer acceptable. We have a right to live.”

Rabbi Boteach and Israel are as one.

Far be it from me to question the Rabbi’s capacity to commit to two countries. Seamlessly does Boteach spread passion and “Kosher Lust” (his new book) wherever he goes. In question here is the unseemliness of dual patriotism; the conflict of interest, if you will. …

… Contra Boteach, my own passions are tempered by time and place. I live in America. My neighbors are American. This is my home. I may be a Jew, but I’m an American patriot first. My loyalties lie with my (war-weary) countrymen, first. …

… An American writer’s intellectual energy ought to focus on American interests, first. Personal probity demands it! Otherwise, the columnist is a fifth column. …

… Read the complete column. “American Rabbis For Israel First” is now on WND.

UPDATE: GOOD COLUMN; BACK PAGE. From the Facebook Thread:

Kerry Crowel: “Whoa … Ilana, that is one hell of a good column.”

Ilana Mercer: “Kerry Crowel, thanks. I thought so. But it’s on second page, as usual, on WND. Second page is more or less the rule for one of the site’s longest standing columns. When thinking of where to publish next book, one takes into account the kind of promotion the column gets. Or no promotion, rather. But thanks for your kind comment.”

Rabbinical Hypocrisy: Rabbi Is Liberal In America; Conservative In Israel

America, Israel, Judaism & Jews, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim

“We will do what we must to protect our people. We have that right,” puffs Rabbi Menachem Creditor, writing at the HuffPost. Is the rabbi an Israeli, living in the thick of terrorism? Of course, not. He is a cloistered American liberal. The rabbi embodies everything I’ve come to despise in America’s mostly liberal Jewry, by which I mean this:

American Jews tend to stake out left-liberal positions with respect to the concerns of their fellow Americans, but are rightist on matters Israel. For America, leftist Jews advocate a multicultural, immigration free-for-all, pluralist pottage. At the same time for Israel, most Jews claim the right to retain a creedal and cultural distinctiveness and a Jewish majority. Israel, but not the US, should be allowed to control immigration and guard its borders.

Ask any left-liberal American Jew if he supports a “Right of Return” to Israel proper for every self-styled Palestinian refugee, and he’ll recoil: “Are you mad? Never. That’s a euphemism for Israel’s demise.” The very thing he opposes for Israel, the leftist Jew is inclined to champion for America: a global right of return to the US for the citizens of the world. When it comes to “returning” to America only (but not Israel), humankind is said to possess a positive, manufactured right to venture wherever, whenever. (This view is common among American liberals of all religious persuasions.) [From “The Titan is Tired”]

Without the remotest awareness of the logical and moral contradiction his position presents—rightist political prescriptions for Israel, but leftist prescriptions for the American people—Rabbi Creditor proclaims proudly that he is “a progressive American rabbi who leans left pretty hard,” and who believes “immigrants [are] treated like chattel by the US.”

I’ve been engaged, as a US faith leader, in work to reform gun laws, extend LGBT rights around the world, grant refuge to illegal immigrants, protect women’s reproductive choice, and more. Paint me blue.
So, when it comes to Israel, many of those with whom I engage in social reform expect me to react to Israel’s military actions in Gaza with scorn and criticism. To be fair, there are times when I do. …

… So I’m a progressive US faith leader. I’m a Zionist in Berkeley, CA. I’m a Jew in the world, worried for my family. So here is my response to those criticizing Israel this week. …”

More.

UPDATED: Haman Hussein’s Healthcare (The Latest)

Ann Coulter, Barack Obama, Healthcare, Judaism & Jews

With each exorbitant healthcare bill I pay these days—and have paid since my policy was restructured to comply with Haman’s healthcare edicts—I am reminded to say the thing we Jews say following the name of a force for evil. Let me put it in context:

The last hellcare update you got here was of Ann Coulter struggling mightily to buy insurance after a policy cancellation. That a well-to-do woman would fight to find and purchase a product as essential as healthcare insurance in the USA, tells you all you need to know about those “markets” the moron, “Yimach Sh’mo,” has ruined.

Yimach Sh’mo means “may his name be erased from memory” (or Damnatio memoriae) and it “is commonly uttered by Jews after the mention of Hitler, Stalin and Haman.

A bit of hyperbole, perhaps?

Haman Hussein is hurting my pocket and may hurt my health. He is hurting the health of many less fortunate than I; should Individuals whose healthcare insurance Haman has canceled fall seriously ill—he’ll be the ruin of them. They’ll have to deplete their savings and sell their homes to heal themselves. No, the mention of Haman and Hussein in tandem does not constitute hyperbole.

In short succession, I’ll bring you the latest developments in Haman’s healthcare.

UPDATE (3/31): The facts not finessed:

The administration claims 6 million have “signed up” for Haman’s health care. There is a big difference between selecting a plan and paying for one. Data from state exchanges, says Betsy McCaughey, indicate that up to a third have not paid. Data from the federal exchanges point to 20 percent.

How many of the 6 million insured by Haman are new, paying policy holders, and how many had insurance before Haman, “Yimach Sh’mo,” dispossessed them of their chosen plans and shoved them on to his?

Only about 27 percent of Haman healthcare policy holders were uninsured before, estimate McKinsey & Company.

Given that as many as 5 to 6 million people lost plans they liked and were forced onto exchanges and plans they dislike—there has been “no net increase in the number of insured,” ventures Ms. McCaughey’s

Of course, the CBOafs (The Congressional Budget Oafs)—whose practice it is to “first confirm government predictions of the great savings that will accrue due to this or the other wastrel, welfare program. Later, when it’s safer, they adjust their statistical sleight of hand”—had echoed Haman. They promised that “the vast majority of the people eligible for subsidies on the exchanges would be previously uninsured individuals.”

Instead, says Avik Roy, “the vast majority are previously insured people, many of whom are getting a better deal on the exchanges because they either qualify for subsidies, or because they’re older individuals who benefit from the law’s steep rate hikes on the young.”

This is nothing new to those of us who understood the simple mathematical facts about a $2 trillion government program.