Category Archives: Judaism & Jews

Mama Obama

Barack Obama, Democrats, Elections 2008, Judaism & Jews, Race

As you can imagine, it wasn’t an easy item to find in mainstream media. I looked all over for Michelle Obama’s bitter slip of the tongue—at MSNBC’s website, the Washington Times’, and others—before finding it buried at the bottom of the New York Times’ page and framed as cat fight initiated by Cindy McCain. Ditto Time. Michelle Obama makes a snide snippy comment, and Time asks the McCain campaign to comment on Cindy McCain’s retort. Apparently, anyone shining light where the media sheds only darkness must answer for it.

Here’s what Mrs. Obama told a Wisconsin audience:

“For the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country.”

A good column calls the events and the characters correctly. I hate to keep reminding my readers, but, if I don’t, who will? As Hillel, the Jewish sage, said, “If I am not for myself, then who will be for me? And if I am only for myself, then what am I? And if not now, when?” (Let Obama beat that brilliance) In “Homie Has Some Rings to Kiss,” I did not delude readers about Obama’s militant wife:

“Obama has always seemed a reluctant recruit to racial politics; driven more by expediency and fear—fear of his overbearing wife and the Reverends Jackson and Sharpton.”

Mark Halperin of “The Page” worried that conservative media would begin to scrutinize Michelle Obama if she kept such comments coming. He saw no reason to dissect the sainted one’s vicious remarks.

There is no finessing what Michelle Obama meant. Her comments come from the same bottomless pit from which the Reverends Sharpton and Jackson launch their periodical grievance campaigns; that festering reservoir of racial animus and envy. This is a comment from a woman who’s led a charmed life, yet feels aggrieved and angry.

(An aside: Mama is quite masculine.)

Updated: Grammar Tutorial For Malkin

America, English, Human Accomplishment, Judaism & Jews, The West, The Zeitgeist

I know most of you don’t share my apparently anachronistic devotion to syntax and grammar—English, not Spanish. But I couldn’t help sharing with you one of Ms. Malkin’s grammatical infelicity:

“There are a new generation of combat veterans running for office who haven’t made a career of trashing the base.” So Ms. Malkin wrote.

Let me do the schoolmarm’s dues: the subject of the sentence is “a new generation of combat veterans running for office.” It is singular, not plural. Therefore: “There is a new generation of combat veterans running for office that hasn’t made a career of trashing the base.” 

Grammarians: Is it “that” or “which”–that’s my dilemma here.

(I was not particualrly enamored of these tortured sentences.)

Those of you who’re interested in staying faithful to English may appreciate this post: “Conjugate The Verb, Dammit!”
Of course, I always welcome corrections.

Update: Wouldn’t you know it; we got a few letters from the new kind of conservative. Who is he? He is the ultimate social leveler. An egalitarian. He views exceptional abilities as a threat to the banality he feels so comfortable around. He loves that English has been debased and no one is the wiser. Why? It makes him feel good about himself. He considers it the height of meanness for the knowledgeable to impart a lesson to the less knowledgeable. Teaching to him is “elitism.” He is the parent who charges headlong into class if a teacher dares to correct his crappy kid. “What are you doing to little Johnny’s self-esteem,” he’ll bleat. He is the reason good teachers are scarce and kids are as high on themselves as they are pig-ignorant.
Self-esteem, not objective knowledge and standards, is his catechism. Pointing out errors–teaching–hurts feelings, so it must be shunned. “I don’t want to learn, I want to feel good” is his credo. Far better to wallow in ignorance than point out the god-awful error of a seasoned “writer.” (This was not a typo or a spelling error—mere trifles—but a serious grammatical error, one that indicates the writer hasn’t a clue about syntax and grammar.)  He’s the creep who wants to invade every “Aayrab” country–that he considers a proper defense of the West; defending the English language; not so much. (And yes, he still pronounces it Eyeraq instead of Eeraq.)
Russell Kirk, a brilliant writer, would be sick to his stomach on reading what passes for an op-ed these days (to say nothing of what passes for books).
Do me a favor; go slum it elsewhere.

Update # II: An example of this despicable mindset: a reader writes, on the one hand, that my “abilities as a writer…are exquisite.” This is a good thing, right? Not to the “Idiocracy“. He quickly qualifies that this skill I have, which I’ve honed with is evidence not of passion, hard work and wicked self-scrutiny (the last column was written in one sitting), but of a “snippy or smug, uppity aura.” Get it? If you can use the language to convey so much, as I do, you’re not to be praised or appreciated, but picked upon.
Shall I begin to write like Billo to please this standard bearer? Wait a sec, Ilana; you already know that had you agreed to become a political Ho, your syndication would not have fallen through.
Sing along with me y’all to the tune of “Aquarius” from that great piece of art, “Hair”: this is the age of the idiot, the age of the idiot, the idiot…

(Another reason to love Malkin: she made internment chic again.)

Updated: Mitt’s Sincere Sermon

America, Christianity, Elections 2008, Judaism & Jews, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Liberty, Objectivism, Religion, The West, The Zeitgeist

I don’t think a commentator can credibly understand or expatiate upon America, in particular—and the West, in general—without reference to the Judeo-Christian tradition. Heck, one can’t appreciate the greatest composer of all times—Bach—without acknowledging the contribution of his muse—Christianity—to the glory of his music. Ditto for many other great artists.
This is why there’s a sterility and a lack of believability to the religious-hating aspects of Objectivism. As to Christopher Hitchens, he’s an ex-Trotskyite. Why would he understand America?
I say all this even though I am irreligious (although very Jewish in my thinking). America is undeniably and deeply religious.
Having no dog in the fight over Mitt’s Mormonism, I have to say, moreover, that listening to his speech about his faith was moving. Admittedly, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints may have some odd ideas. Not so the Mormons I know; they are very fine people. And quite magnificent is the Mormon Tabernacle Choir; it’s in fact the finest in the world.
As you can see, it’s impossible to untangle religion in the West and the glorious cultural contribution it has inspired in the faithful.
Particularly loathsome in their mocking commentary about Mitt’s sincere sermon were Keith Olbermann and his Washington-Post henchman—they compared Mitt to their idol, J. F. Kennedy, and found him lacking, to put it mildly. The two did, however, drive home how loathsome the liberal left can be.

Update: Jerri (listen to her great interviews) will enjoy this excerpt from the Hebrew Bible in the First Book Of Samuel. It’s one of the oldest, greatest, most forceful injunctions against the wickedness of centralized power. (Let me tell you, it’s so much better in the original Hebrew). How can one grasp the ancient quest for liberty without proper reverence to this tradition and its revelational component? Note that the king, warns G-d, will take a tenth of the people’s wealth. If only! Send us such a king who will enslave us to the tune of a tenth only!
1 Samuel 8

Israel Asks for a King
1 When Samuel grew old, he appointed his sons as judges for Israel. 2 The name of his firstborn was Joel and the name of his second was Abijah, and they served at Beersheba. 3 But his sons did not walk in his ways. They turned aside after dishonest gain and accepted bribes and perverted justice.
4 So all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah. 5 They said to him, “You are old, and your sons do not walk in your ways; now appoint a king to lead [a] us, such as all the other nations have.”
6 But when they said, “Give us a king to lead us,” this displeased Samuel; so he prayed to the LORD. 7 And the LORD told him: “Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king. 8 As they have done from the day I brought them up out of Egypt until this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are doing to you. 9 Now listen to them; but warn them solemnly and let them know what the king who will reign over them will do.”
10 Samuel told all the words of the LORD to the people who were asking him for a king. 11 He said, “This is what the king who will reign over you will do: He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots. 12 Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. 13 He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. 14 He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants. 15 He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants. 16 Your menservants and maidservants and the best of your cattle [b] and donkeys he will take for his own use. 17 He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves. 18 When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, and the LORD will not answer you in that day.”

Updated: The Boring Idea (Or Donny Vs. Annie)

Ann Coulter, Christianity, Judaism & Jews, Media

The verbose, vacuous Donny Deutsch had the leggy, one-trick Coulter on his big bore of a show, “The Big Idea.”

The exchange:

“Deutsch said to her: ‘You said we should throw Judaism away and we should all be Christians,’ and Coulter again replied, ‘Yes.’ When pressed by Deutsch regarding whether she wanted to be like ‘the head of Iran’ and ‘wipe Israel off the Earth,’ Coulter stated: ‘No, we just want Jews to be perfected, as they say. … That’s what Christianity is. We believe the Old Testament, but ours is more like Federal Express. You have to obey laws.’”

Deutsch promptly took offense. Left-liberals, Jews included, followed. I don’t have the time or patience to search for links to their apoplexy (here’s one). However, let me say this: If Coulter was more than a brash babe (she’s looking bonny), she’d have explained (as I did in “Unlearend Rabbi Rages at Ratzinger“) that a filament of the Christian faith is the belief that the path to God is predicated on accepting Christ. The centrality in Christianity of accepting Christ is a doctrinal issue, plain and simple. To get past the Pearly Gates, Christians believe one has to accept Christ.

So what? I don’t hear Christians telling orthodox Jews to ditch their maddening dietary laws, because these make people of other faiths feel excluded.

So long as they don’t use the Rack to convert others, why do these immutable doctrinal issues matter?

On a slightly different tack (but still on the topic of Coulter and Christianity), I wrote the following in February, 2005:

“Most real people had a 9/11 moment. Ann Coulter’s call to arms was particularly memorable. For exhorting, ‘We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity,’ she was even banished from National Review. This was indeed a puzzling purge, considering neoconservatives promptly adopted her recommendations, invaded Muslim countries, and killed their leaders.

The neocons have adopted all of Coulter’s recommendations, save the peaceful one. So long as it’s voluntary and doesn’t involve The Rack, I think that unleashing an army of missionaries on the Islamic patrimony would be far more efficacious than the military offensives currently underway. In fact, I’ve always suspected that an aversion to Christian conversion was at the core of the ‘girlie boys’’ horrified response to Coulter’s cri de coeur.”

Update (12:25 AM): A brief comment on Coulter’s clinging to the instant clemency Christianity offers:

Here’s more of Coulter the theologian, in the punch-up with Deutsch:

“[The New Testament] is more like Federal Express,” she barked at Deutsch. “You have to obey laws. … As you know from the Old Testament, God was constantly getting fed up with humans for not being able to live up to all the laws. What Christians believe—this is just a statement of what the New Testament is—is that that’s why Christ came and died for our sins.”

Yes, a Jew can’t expect to go to heaven if he whoops it up for an unjust war, and pimps for a corrupt president (that is if you believe all the heaven hocus pocus; I don’t). In Judaism, your actions determine your fate on earth and in the hereafter (the first being more important than the last).

A rabbi can’t wave a wand and absolve the wicked, as a priest does following confession. A Jew has to obey certain imperatives toward G-d and his fellow man. In other words, he must live justly and do good deeds.

So, yes: I can see the appeal amnesty express à la Christianity would hold for Coulter.