Author Archives: Rabbi

PEOPLE’S COURT-ING DISASTER

Posted on December 15, 2010 | 4 comments

The recent People’s Court episode featuring an Orthodox couple suing a laundry service for washing and ruining the woman’s wig has once again put Torah Jews in a negative light. In addition to the show’s regular viewers, more than 100,000 people have seen a video of the trial and decision. A short review of the facts is in order: By all accounts, the couple’s child had accidentally put a wig in the laundry bag, which was delivered to the cleaning service – whether authorized or not is disputed – that washed it, and rendered it unwearable to all but the most stylistically-challenged. The wife testified quite candidly, as a pious Jew, she wears the wig for religious reasons since she married, and that the destroyed wig was valued at $3000.00. The defendant claimed that they had been authorized to wash it – but that wasn’t the real issue.

The judge ascertained that the plaintiffs had not received any repair estimate but on their own claimed the wig as a total loss. This was a serious deficiency in the plaintiff’s burden of proof, but the judge investigated further, allegedly calling Georgie the wig company, maker of the wig in question. She discovered, much to her distress, that the receipt for $3000 applied to the beautiful wig the women was presently wearing in court, rather than to the bird’s nest the woman had submitted into evidence. In other words, the judge accused the couple of lying – of claiming the damaged wig was worth far more than it actually did – and she dismissed their case.

The couple was asked to respond, and looked like the proverbial deer in the headlights. The flabbergasted husband just lamented that “the judge called us liars,” but had no credible retort. The wife was equally dumbfounded. When, as a trial lawyer arguing cases before juries, I would impeach the credibility of witnesses for their inconsistent statements, I would always quote Mark Twain, who used to say that “If you tell the truth you don’t have to remember anything.” If the couple could not think of an answer on the spot to account for the discrepancy, there is really nothing left to say. You can’t show up in court without evidence – or answers – and hope to look good. The truth is only one story; it should be fairly easy to recall.

It was a cringe-worthy moment – on national television, religious Jews were accused of telling a bald-faced lie in order to win money from struggling Hispanic businessmen. Subsequently, the couple mounted a defense in the Jewish media – that perhaps the judge had not called Georgie or had called the wrong Georgie, that they had been unsettled and frightened and did not defend themselves adequately or quickly enough. Some even suggested that they would and should sue the People’s Court.

I hope not. The question that presents is: if what they are saying is true, then why didn’t they scream when accused that “it can’t be…you’re making a terrible mistake,” much like Yehuda did when confronted with evidence of Binyamin’s guilt. He didn’t wait to investigate or to mull over a retort because he knew that Binyamin was innocent, and that something else was afoot. If they knew then what they claim to know now, they should have said it then. Post- conviction (here, post-liability) assertions carry zero weight. If you know it can’t be, then say so. It would make for great television, which is what the producers want anyway.

Unfortunately, the post-facto defense does not really matter, and once the public trial ended, the real facts and the winner/loser of the court case paled before the Chilul Hashem (“desecration of G-d’s name”) that was engendered. The actual truth or justice or whether the couple was indeed right or wrong – deserved compensation or not – are now irrelevant. “It matters not whether Chilul Hashem is intentional or unintentional (Avot 4:4);” the effect is the same. A Jew has to be extremely careful of his/her public persona, deeds and appearance because desecration of G-d’s name is a horrendous sin even if it is unintentional and inadvertent – even if it was involuntary. The impression left that religious Jews – scrupulous in their observance of the laws of modesty but cavalier (or worse) about other people’s money – is one that is difficult to dispel. And for tens of thousands of viewers, rightly or wrongly, it will never be dispelled. Chilul Hashem is not a deed; it is a result of a deed.

Certain conclusions need to be drawn. One of my most cherished colleagues suggested that our religious Jewish communal organizations should henceforth ban Orthodox Jews from appearing on reality shows. We don’t need the world to see Orthodox Jewish litigants, fashion models, apprentices, et al – it never turns out well. I agree. All these shows feed on human venality and dysfunction, and elicit the worst facets of our character. The Talmud (Yoma 86b) states that we are obligated “to publicize the deeds of hypocrites because of the desecration of G-d’s name that is caused,” and Rashi comments that we do that because people will see their deeds, assume their righteousness, and be misled. That’s not to say that this particular couple – strangers to me – are hypocrites; it does say that we have to be very careful never to put ourselves in a position where even our appropriate actions can be misinterpreted and misunderstood, and put the Torah in a negative light.

Furthermore, it should never be satisfactory to console ourselves that “it’s just a few people, the majority of us are righteous, etc.” That trope might work for others, but it should never satisfy us. We are part of a “kingdom of priests and a holy nation” to whom the Creator of the universe revealed Himself at Sinai and in the Holy Temples. No one is impressed by disclaimers, nor should we be impressed. If one wants to appear on TV, then do so to defend the Jewish people or do something positive for humanity – don’t do it for money or fame.

Rav Shlomo Aviner once wrote that it is more important to teach a young child love of humanity even before we teach that child about love of G-d. A young child cannot fully comprehend “love of G-d” anyway. Love of humanity has to come first, because whoever is personally corrupt, who grows up with a distorted character will just have his mature “love of G-d” and his advanced knowledge of Torah built on a crooked foundation. Then one can wear a yarmulke and steal – and all for a good cause. But if one loves and respects people, then it is impossible to steal from others or to harm them. If we perceive that all others are created in the image of G-d just like we are, then it becomes nearly impossible to mistreat or defraud them. Rav Kook added that when love of G-d is built on a foundation of love of humanity, then even our love of humanity will be enhanced.

We must also tread very carefully, and remind ourselves that – like Avraham of old – we are both strangers and residents in the land. We do not have to suspect that there is a Nazi lurking behind every bush to realize that exile is still exile – that history repeats itself, but never exactly the same way, for good and for not so good. To continue – with a new story seemingly every month – to put an unattractive face forward courts disaster. The Torah records the stories of our forefathers and foremothers because they taught us about the proper responses to life and its challenges, about keeping the faith even amid turmoil. When we follow their path, we are distinguished for our goodness, and when we do not, we stand out in less savory ways.

This episode – which teachers have shown to their classes in order to provoke discussion and draw conclusions – is a chilling reminder of what can happen when we become too comfortable with ourselves and do not project the possible consequences of a particular course of action. We can undo the damage – whether intentionally inflicted or not – by reinforcing to ourselves the Torah’s notions of ethical conduct to all man, not insisting on every claim we might have, and focusing on what is holy and upright. Then we will be a truly great nation, worthy of the standards that G-d has set for us.

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Word Kill

Posted on December 7, 2010 | 1 comment

“Life and language are alike sacred. Homicide and verbicide –that is, violent treatment of a word with fatal results to its legitimate meaning, which is its life –are alike forbidden.” So wrote Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894), the American author and poet and father of the better-known and similarly named Supreme Court Justice. Words are the “signs of ideas” (Samuel Johnson), both shaping and heralding the coming attractions of intellectual, cultural and moral life, and the subtlety with which words change meanings – forego old ones and embrace new one – can define the very society in which those changes occur.

In other forums, I’ve addressed the political uses of language – how whether one terms the heartland of Israel “Judea and Samaria” (the biblical and historic names) or “the West Bank” (a concoction from 1950, which also induced the [mythical] Kingdom of Transjordan to become the [mythical] Kingdom of Jordan) speaks volumes about one’s political views on Israel’s “possession” (or “occupation;” same point) of that part of the Holy Land. Examples are legion and these days affect every area of life. Part of the asymmetrical warfare waged today against the civilized is the use by the Muslim terrorists of the language and values of Western civilization – human rights, liberty, freedom, self-determination, etc. – as weapons in the battle for public opinion, and in order to demoralize the civilized societies. No Muslim society grants to its citizens the rights that terrorists claim is being deprived to them by the “evil” West.

Alexis de Tocqueville noted that “the genius of democracies is seen not only in the great number of new words introduced but even more in the new ideas they express,” or sometimes in the ways that words are used to misinform or mislead rather that enlighten or educate.

For example, Congress is now debating whether to “make permanent the Bush tax cuts of 2002.” I certainly hope they do, not because government doesn’t need the money but rather because government cannot be trusted to spend most of it in any rational or productive way. People who recklessly run deficits in the trillions of dollars – and then boast about providing great “constituent service” – should not be trusted to run a newspaper stand, much less a government. Our governor, Chris Christie, who acts like the only adult in a room of whiny children, is gaining popularity by preaching the obvious: don’t spend more than you have, and don’t commit to buy things you can’t afford. What novel concepts, so jarring to his contemporaries that he is considered in this liberal state wildly popular with a 52% (!) approval rating.

The point here, though, is that even if the tax cuts are made “permanent,” there is nothing permanent about them. These reductions will not be “everlasting, eternal, undeviating, etc.” – they are “permanent”…until some other Congress decides to change them, in other words, not permanent at all, but just permanent enough to quell the uprising brewing in the circles where people actually think trillion dollar deficits are unsustainable. So “permanent” here does not mean “permanent” – except in the sense that it is no longer temporary. (Another example of the inherent distrust of elites addicted to spending other people’s money: the Deficit Commission is recommending lower tax rates in exchange for elimination of certain common deductions or exemptions. The problem is that, invariably at some point, the rates will be raised again – but those deductions will never return.) So now the talk is of “extending” the Bush tax cuts; good, they’re catching on.

Holmes’ comment about the fatal treatment of certain words is readily apparent in groups that describe themselves euphemistically in order to promote a political agenda. For example, the cheery English word “gay” has been hijacked already for decades by the homosexuals, to the extent that its original meaning is almost extinct and cannot be uttered in a sentence without provoking snickers. I am always suspicious of people who characterize themselves by an adjective when a noun is much more appropriate. (Atheists, following this pattern, have taken to calling themselves, somewhat wishfully, “brights,” but that has not yet caught on.) And “gay,” meaning “merry or carefree” hardly fits the description of a sexual inclination, whether homosexual or heterosexual. It is also a mystery how and why heterosexuality came to be known as “straight,” the opposite of which would be “crooked,” although, not knowing any heterosexuals who call themselves “straight,” I sense the term came as well from the homosexuals. “Gay” does project a positive, upbeat, buoyant spin to a lifestyle fraught with challenges, to say the least; but who else self-defines using an adjective that is unrelated to the group’s practices, interests, lifestyle or cause? And why must the rest of society be bound by that self-definition?

The word “queer” has also been derailed by the same group, although it still retained its customary usage even 25 years ago. Once upon a time, “queer” was a faintly amusing description of something that was unexpected, odd, or curious. Nowadays, it clearly has pejorative connotations, and its use by social convention is limited to the homosexual community.

Speaking of which, it is indeed queer, in the sense of perplexing, that some words are seemingly licensed for use by certain groups and prohibited to others. I once publicly, and innocuously, used the common term “yekke,” – an endearing reference to German Jews (likely origin: the yekkes, or jackets, they kept wearing in pre-State Israel, defying the more relaxed sartorial conventions of the day) – and was accosted later by a German Jew offended by my use of the term, saying that since I am not a German Jew, I do not have the right to use it. That was the first and only time that reference elicited such a response, which I have heard used thousands of times. This particular gentleman told me that my use of the term stung him, as “if I had used the N-word.”

Indeed, some words are so sensitive today that they can only be referred to by a letter, and the N-word is at the top of that list. It is another of those words that only members of the group are allowed to use, and blacks routinely call each other – in print, in lyrics, and in idle conversation – the N-word with little consequence. I have a hard time with the notion that some words are permissible to some people and prohibited to others; something which is offensive should always be offensive. It doesn’t become less offensive if an insider uses them, unless to begin with the offense is contrived. Yet, Dr. Laura Schlessinger recently resigned her radio program (she has since re-surfaced on satellite radio) because she mimicked the use of the “N-word” by blacks, something that, as a white woman, she was not allowed to do by the authorities who decide such things.

The sensitivity towards the N-word has led to the death of a word that I regularly used in the 1980s and 1990s – the word “niggardly,” meaning “miserly or cheap.” Its etymology has no connection at all to the N-word; yet, the phonetic similarity, I seem to recall, led to the resignation of a DC bureaucrat in 1999 who made the mistake of using it as an intelligent person would and not as the hyper-sensitive simpletons in his office understood it. He was later returned to his job; the word itself has been discontinued.

Then there are the words that play on ethnic stereotypes that the PC-crowd – and each offended group – has long sought to eradicate. Some verbs, like “to jew” (meaning to cheat, or to bargain down), have been banned from polite discourse, even as others, lacking the organizational muscle (or perhaps just the interest) to bring about their repudiation, still linger in the public domain. The truth is that the use of “jew” as a verb is just as offensive as the use of “gyp” (swindle, from Gypsy), or “welsh” (cheat, go back on one’s word, which the English perceived as a problem among natives of Wales). Curiously, or perhaps not, most of these ethnic verbs (or nouns, like Indian giver) involve some sort of deceptive practice from which victims generalized to the nationality of the deceiver, rather than the trickster himself, or herself. For sure, all these words (and there are others) are colorful, but they should be given a disrespectful funeral and be buried once and for all.

Our Sages always reminded us of the power of words – to inspire, to educate, to challenge, to intimidate, to sanctify, to profane, to comfort, or to uplift. “Death and life are in the power of the tongue” (Proverbs 18:21). Indeed, the Talmud (Arachin 15b) states that man is given a number of safeguards to ensure that he only speaks when appropriate and only says what is appropriate; after all, his tongue is shielded by teeth and lips (“a wall of bone and a wall of flesh”) and must advance beyond those fences in order to talk. We are to think first and speak second, and then recognize that our speech reflects our thinking – but influences it also. As Samuel Coleridge, the 19^th century British philosopher said, “language is the armory of the human mind, and at once contains the trophies of its past and the weapons of its future conquests.” Among those “future conquests,” or at least battlefields, will be the realm of morality, the war against terror and the struggle for decency and kindness towards all groups and all peoples.

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Posted in Contemporary Life, Current Events, Machshava/Jewish Thought

The Challenge of Chanuka

Posted on December 3, 2010 | Comments Off

One brief and insightful idea about Chanuka from Rav Shlomo Aviner is worth sharing. When all is said and done, relatively very few Jews participated in the Hasmonean rebellion. Most Jews were Hellenists, many had despaired in the face of the reigning superpowers whose culture seemed superior to that of the Jews and whose might and dominance seemed invincible, and many others simply saw the struggle for religious freedom and regained sovereignty over the land of Israel under such circumstances as a futile quest. What held them back ? In a word: realism.

A realistic assessment of the military and political conditions of the Jews was undoubtedly a major factor in the complacency of their society. The Greco-Syrian empire was too powerful, too numerous, too strong, and too sophisticated. They had the support of the elites, they were the envy of the ancient world, and their society was unconstrained by such niceties as monotheism – deference to a G-d who is the Creator of the Universe as well as the Author of the moral code by which His creatures are obligated to live. Many Jews found “freedom” in the enslavement brought upon them by Greek culture. They had no use for the Temple and its service, or for the parochial interests of the Jewish people in the face of the pervasiveness of Greek civilization.

By contrast, Jews were few in number, militarily and politically insignificant, and not fully recovered from the debacle that led to the destruction of the First Temple. Many “leaders” of the Jews were impious, and the Temple service itself had been corrupted. Every rational argument – every slice of realism – dictated that all Jews simply accept their fate as a vassal of the Greek Empire, and, like all other conquered nations had done, just assimilate into the great Hellenist culture.

One family stood in the way, and they too were realists, but realists of a different sort – with one added dimension. Yehuda and his men also knew the odds against them, the superiority of the enemy, and the defeat of even greater military forces than they could muster. But Yehuda also knew that running through all of Jewish history is a streak of anti-realism, or, better, said, a realism that takes into account Divine Providence.

It was unrealistic for one family to go into Egyptian exile, and rather than blend into that mighty empire, instead emerge from bondage as a nation eager to return to its homeland. It was unrealistic to expect a nation of millions to survive 40 years in the Sinai wilderness, or defeat 31 Canaanite kings. It was unrealistic to expect Jews to weather destruction and exile to Babylon – and return and establish a Second Jewish Commonwealth. All this Yehuda knew, and so rather than being deterred, he was inspired.

What he did not know was that it was unrealistic for Jews to survive as a nation the second destruction of the Temple, and a long exile in which Jews were tormented by Romans, Byzantines, Zoroastrians, Christians, Muslims, Nazis and Communists for 19 centuries. He certainly did not know that such a scattered and weakened people would meet with Divine favor and again – after 19 centuries – return to its divinely-granted homeland and re-establish an independent state, both historically unprecedented achievements, and all as predicted by the Jewish prophets of old.

For many, realism sounds rational and cogent, but this type of realism – that fails to account for all possible factors – is misleading and ambiguous. The realism of conventional wisdom is, for many, an albatross, and leads to small minds thinking small thoughts, and constricting all the possibilities implicit in the renaissance of the Jewish people. They are today’s Hellenists, and their voices are strident and their writings abound. They preach despair, concessions, and surrender. They pride themselves on forecasting the “inevitability” of … a Palestinian state, the dissolution of Israel, Iranian nuclear weapons, Islamic-terrorist power. They say “can’t” when they mean “won’t” – and it is their fecklessness that fuels their conception of what is “inevitable.”

For Jews, the “G-d factor” cannot simply be an intellectual exercise or a pleasant abstraction, but rather an essential component of our world view and our policy objectives. G-d’s Providence is our reality, and we ignore it at our peril. Even lacking prophecy today, one can attempt to look at events in Israel with a providential eye, even if the conclusions are speculative. The natural forces afflicting Israel today are stunning, as they are catastrophic. An enduring drought has been followed this week, even partially caused, the fires that have ravaged the north of Israel and tragically consumed so many lives. Perhaps – and I write this with humility – if Jews were not so eager to freeze the land of Israel, G-d would unfreeze the heavens over Israel; perhaps if we built the land together, we would not have to behold its burning under our feet.

I don’t know, and as hazardous as it is to speculate in these areas, it is probably even more hazardous to ignore any such implications, and instead attribute everything to nature, geopolitics, money, power and the like. That is a brutal and cold approach to life – an ungodly view – that seems to be the coin of the realist realm.

Chanuka is unique in that it was the very first time after the era of prophecy in which Jews (a small group, to be sure) arose and stated publicly that our faith in G-d is an active and practical element of our political calculations. It was not the last – and, as always, relatively few Jews even today account for the uniqueness of our history in their deliberations, and see through the “realism” that hampers and hinders us to a greater “realism” that is before us: the inevitability of Jewish destiny of which Chanuka is an annual and joyous reminder.

May it always guide our decisions and thoughts, may we all rejoice together on this Chanuka, may G-d give us the strength to re-plant each tree and rebuild each home in the land of Israel, and may He send a speedy recovery to this week’s injured and consolation to the bereaved.

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Posted in Contemporary Life, Current Events, Israel, Jewish History, Machshava/Jewish Thought

Why Obama “hates” Israel

Posted on November 23, 2010 | 2 comments

Well, “hate” is a strong word, an attention-grabber when used in a headline, but employed here as shorthand for what is a more restrained but still accurate question: why does President Obama seem to have such a visceral antipathy, disregard, disdain, or perhaps just indifference to Israel ? There is no natural empathy on his part for a beleaguered American ally. On the rare occasion when he says the right thing, he mouths the words with little emotion, reading mechanically from a script written by others. In the presence of Israeli leaders, his body language shows him to be uncomfortable and tense. There is little intuitive appreciation for the Jewish narrative, underscored by his much-touted Cairo speech (his outreach to the Muslim world that ultimately failed to achieve any objective) in which he justified Israel’s existence based simply on Jewish suffering in the Holocaust, then adding that this does not give Israel the right to persecute others or build settlements – as if that is the issue.

Other presidents have evinced stronger personal ties with Israel, even if they were unsympathetic to Jews or some of Israel’s policies. One can dislike an ally and still perceive its value as an ally. It is important to underscore that I (and we all should) recognize that the American president is first and foremost the president of the United States, and it is his sworn obligation to pursue policies that further the interests of the United States. Too often, some Jews assume that the American president has to be a closet-Likudnik to be acceptable (or, considering, the pathetic performance and lack of principle of most recent Likud prime ministers, a closet member of the Ichud Haleumi, the National Union Party). That is untrue and unfair, and we should expect policy differences to arise on occasion, as a superpower like the United States has to balance a greater number of interests that does a small regional power like Israel. Still, something seems to be missing in the Obama-Israel relationship that transcends policy and veers into the personal. What might that be ?

The American people have long been avid supporters of Israel and the narrative of Israel. That has waned somewhat in recent years, as Americans have tired of the endless Middle East conflict, and especially among self-proclaimed liberals. Yet, in an April 2009 poll by Zogby International, just 10% of Obama voters, but 60% of McCain voters, wanted the president to support Israel. Eighty percent of Obama voters supported getting tougher with Israel, while 73% of McCain voters disagreed with that stance. Two-thirds of Obama voters want America to dialogue with Hamas, while four-fifths of McCain voters oppose that.

A Gallup survey from last spring revealed that Americans overwhelmingly support Israel over the “Palestinians” – 63%-15%. However, measured another way, only 48% of Democrats supported Israel, as opposed to a whopping 85% of Republicans who supported Israel. Whatever this says about the Jews’ unthinking fealty to the Democratic Party, and it should speak volumes, it is clear that President Obama is not that far removed from his party in his attitude to Israel. What brought this about ?

Historically, there are three compelling factors that drove the America-Israel relationship, both as friends and as allies. Loosely, they can be defined as the Religious Factor, the Values Factor, and the Strategic Factor. The three somewhat overlap, sometimes intersect, and, to be sure, various presidents have allocated the weight of the three in differing ways, resulting in slightly different approaches. (The notion shared by some Jews and Jew-haters that America’s support for Israel is based on Jewish votes and political donations is more perception than reality. There are relatively very few Jews in the United States, and most support and vote for the Democratic candidate in any event – regardless of his enthusiasm for Israel. A candidate cannot be perceived as “anti-Israel” – a very amorphous definition, in any event – but he need not be perceived as “pro-Israel.” Sad to say, most Jews would vote for a candidate who was pro-abortion but lukewarm on Israel than for a candidate that is pro-Israel but anti-abortion. Exhibit #110: President Obama, who had other facets that elicited Jewish support as well. And as prosperous as American Jews are – non-Jews have even more money that is lavishly contributed to their preferred candidates.)

THE RELIGIOUS FACTOR: Americans, a religious people, have long been enamored with the Bible and the story of the Jews. Presidents from the time of John Adams have been avid proponents of the return of Jews to the land of Israel, and that support – with obvious exceptions motivated by antipathy to Jews and the need to scurry favor with Arabs – has animated American policy and been consistently reflected in the attitudes of the American public for the last two centuries. This concept undergirds the passionate support for Israel found today in the tens of millions of Americans who are Christian evangelicals. The realization in our day of the historic vision of the prophets of Israel of the ultimate return of the Jewish people to the land of Israel is simply irresistible, and Americans have a keen awareness and appreciation of it.

THE VALUES FACTOR: Americans have perceived the State of Israel since its re-establishment in 1948 as a beacon of light in a region blighted by darkness. Israel is the only real democracy in the Middle East; the other “democracies” have to make regular allowances for the whims of despots and monarchs and the potential dangers of genuine freedom. Israel is rightly seen as representative of American values and aspirations in terms of individual liberty, personal freedoms, democracy, a free press, an independent judiciary and often a dysfunctional government – all things dear to Americans. So American presidents have routinely referred to the “shared values” of America and Israel – both proud outposts of freedom that are difficult to maintain in a hostile world.

THE STRATEGIC FACTOR: Concomitant with shared values and engendered by them is Israel’s strategic value to America. Especially during the Cold War, and after PM Ben-Gurion cast Israel’s fate with the West and not the Soviet bloc, Israel was long perceived as America’s only true ally in the Middle East. Its existence prevented the Soviets from complete domination of the region. Israel’s military conflicts regularly served as testing grounds for America’s weapons versus the Soviet’s weapons, not to mention the boon to American security from captured Soviet weapons that were then analyzed and countered (from the first MIG-21 turned over to the US by Israel in 1966, to countless other weapons systems). In the United Nations, useless and harmful though it might be, Israel has the most consistent record of voting with the United States of any country in the world, even when we factor out that most UN resolutions seem to condemn Israel.

In the war on terror, of course, America has no stronger ally than Israel, and has greatly benefited from Israeli tactics and intelligence. The two countries – the primary targets of Islamic terror – have both endured sudden explosions of terrorist atrocities committed against their civilian populations. Shared suffering has to some extent deepened the bond between the two nations, both an alliance and a friendship.

Obama’s Israel problem can be traced to the fact that he subscribes to the merits of none of these factors. The media drumbeat that clamored for his election did its best to suppress the implications of the fact that Obama was spiritually reared not in the mode of traditional Christians but in a church that was a unabashed exponent of black liberationist theology – that the Bible was the “white man’s religion” (Malcolm X’s phrase) and needed to be redefined as an instrument that would advocate the overthrow of oppressors of the black man. As they saw it, the Bible justified racism, slavery, segregation, economic discrimination and other societal ills. Such a Bible is not to be used as a proof text for Jewish rights anywhere, and the “real Jews,” according to the hard-core theologians are the oppressed blacks overcoming the persecution of the new “Egyptians,” the Americans. No wonder Obama had to throw Reverend Wright under the bus; the real question is how he could have sat in those pews for 20 years listening to this claptrap, unless he himself believed at least some of it.

Thus, Obama does not naturally see America as a force for good in the world, the only nation that spreads liberty and freedom to oppressed nations. His default position is that the US is an imperialist nation, a colonizer that has exploited the Third World, and even increased the suffering of millions. That is why Obama has seen fit to go around the globe apologizing for American misdeeds (Africa, Asia, Arabia, South America) without even acknowledging the life-saving, civilizing benefits of American interventions, and why the disdain he feels towards Israel is also directed at allies such as Britain or Canada. No prior president ever ridiculed, as Obama has, the notion of “American exceptionalism,” that the US is different than other nations and uniquely suited to exporting virtues like freedom, liberty, individual rights and democracy. The “shared values” that have always bound America and Israel are perceived by Obama as contrived, hypocritical, phony and arrogant – if anything, they are grounds to downgrade the relationship, as he has done.

Consequently, it seems clear that President Obama sees Israel as a strategic albatross, not an ally. His outreach to the Muslim world is complicated, if not impaired, by the America-Israel relationship that he inherited and that has been a staple of American foreign policy for decades. The Cold War is long over, and itself was founded on a bi-polar view of the world in which America was the natural leader of the free world, a locution that this president likely finds troublesome and rejects. Israel exists, in Obama’s strategic view of global affairs, only as an irritant – and the alliance is a relic of the past that has to be rolled back.

Nothing in the Israeli narrative resonates with Obama and so his dislike for Israel is ill-concealed, and reflected in his policies and attitudes. Indeed, Obama’s discomfort with the narrative and foundational principles of Israel mirrors his discomfort with the narrative and foundational principles of the United States. There are several implications of this analysis. First, it would certainly behoove an Israeli prime minister to disabuse himself of the notion that there is some policy or initiative he can undertake that will sweeten a relationship that has gone sour. There is nothing he can do (not that Netanyahu foolishly won’t try anyway), and to blur all Israeli red lines in the hopes of changing Obama’s world view is a pipe dream, if not a fatal allusion. Second, Obama must be removed from office, and the 2012 election is therefore critical – for many reasons that do not all relate to Israel. Sensible Jews will have to overcome their whimsy of blindly supporting Democrats, and this despite the inevitable charm offensive that will include forced smiles, empty rhetoric that employs Yiddish or Hebrew words, accusations of racism, weapons sales, and who knows – perhaps Obama will even hold his nose and briefly visit Israel, which, along with Zimbabwe, seems to be the only country on earth he has not yet visited.

Third, in the short term, Jews will have to cultivate warmer relations with the new Republican House and friendly Democratic congressmen, and bear in mind that Israel’s base of support in America today is not in the White House, but in the Congress and, more importantly, with the American people. They are the ones who will resurrect and strengthen this relationship that reflects so well on both countries and can yet benefit all of mankind.

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Posted in Contemporary Life, Current Events, Israel