My people came to this country in the ten years either side of 1900. They were afraid of the pogroms in Russia and Eastern Europe, they came from Poland, Bukovina, Bialystok, to Brooklyn and the Lower East Side. Some day…
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Monthly Archives: January 2007
David Gregory, Pls Come Forward in Libby Case
Last night, NBC Nightly News reported Ari Fleischer’s testimony from the Scooter Libby trial, in which the former press guy said he had sought immunity from prosecution because he had done the very thing that Libby is accused of doing:…
How Neocons (and Neolibs) Dismissed the Prospect of Sunni-Shi’ite Conflict in Iraq
Now that everyone except Dick Cheney agrees that Iraq has dissolved into civil war, I grabbed a couple of neocons’ (and neolibs’) books off my shelf last night to see how they treated the issue of Sunnis and Shi’ites killing…
Jewish Liberals Say The Dog Wags the Tail (I Say the Tail Wags the Dog)
Doni Remba, a peace activist, disputes my claim that the progressive voice in Jewish life has been marginalized by the neocons. He has some evidence: he says he’s getting traction in the Jewish press for his view that there has…
‘Commentary’ Shows Fairness to Two Critics of Israel
One of the challenges facing American Jewry is to understand the Palestinian version of Israel’s war of independence in 1948. What was, for Zionists, a great triumph was for Palestinians a Naqba, or catastrophe. 700,000 of them were soon gone….
Guilt Over Fascism Fuels the Spanish Allegory in ‘Pan’s Labyrinth’
I saw “Pan’s Labyrinth” the other night. It’s a great movie, period. That said, my friends and I differed on the thrust of the allegory, whether it is political or psychological. The movie is set, very realistically, in a fascist…
Jimmy Carter Is Still Passionless (but Soulful)
A couple of times now, I’ve posted items imagining Jimmy Carter as being motivated by a spiritual debt to Anwar Sadat. Carter made Sadat stay at Camp David in 1978 when he wanted to leave; and Sadat gave his life…
Judt Responds to Dershowitz’s Characterization: ‘It Is a Lie’
I emailed Tony Judt to tell him how Dershowitz had characterized his position re Israel. Judt responded: “It is a lie, and implicitly defamatory (a dissolver of Israel is an anti-Zionist is an anti-semite, etc…). From Dershowitz one expects no…
Were George Trow’s Eulogists Ashamed of His Psychiatric History?
Last weekend an old friend came by and surprised me with an offhand statement. She had been friends of the writer George W.S. Trow, who died last November at 63, and she said he had been in and out of…
At Brandeis, Alan Dershowitz Snaps His Towel at Tony Judt
The other day at Brandeis, Alan Dershowitz, responding to Jimmy Carter, took a shot at NYU’s Tony Judt because of Judt’s famous call (in the New York Review of Books) to give up on the idea of a Jewish state….
Congressional Junkets to Israel: A Key Tool of the Rightwing Lobby
One of Jimmy Carter’s most powerful points at Brandeis Tuesday was a challenge to Brandeis to organize its own trip to the Occupied Territories to find out whether he was exaggerating the horrible conditions that Palestinians face. “See for yourself.”…
Carter’s Breakup on NBC Nightly News: Survivor Guilt?
Brian Williams stood up for Jimmy Carter Monday by airing a wonderful scene from the Carter Center over the weekend. At some panel convened by Williams, Carter volunteered a scene at Camp David with Anwar Sadat that is apparently not…
What Was Cheney Chewing During State of the Union?
I missed the POTUS’s SOTUS last night, but a couple of friends have said that just behind him Cheney was not-so-surreptitiously putting something in his mouth and chewing and washing it down. Antacids was one guess, crackers another. So on…
Hagel , Durbin Et Al Should Apply ‘Political’ Theory of Iraq Violence to Israel/Palestine
I’ve noticed some antiwar politicians describing the terrorism in Iraq as “political” in character. Chuck Hagel has said this. So has Dick Durbin. This is important: they are saying that the terrorism is not based on fanaticism but on feelings…
Actually, Obama Did Go to a ‘Madrasah’
CNN’s “Situation Room” tonight sought to dispel the rumor that has started that Barack Obama attended a “madrasah” in Indonesia as a boy. The show reported that Obama has written in his autobiography that he attended a Muslim school for…
Further Defense Re Jewish Opposition to Iraq War
A friendly commenter makes the point that Jews voted against Bush (while the country was voting him in) and, by a good majority, opposed the Iraq war, per a lot of polls. Fair enough. But I would say that we…
Why I’m Right About Liberal Jews and the Antiwar Movement
First off, let’s be clear about something: It’s easy to be against the war now; everyone is against it. Three and four years into Vietnam, more than half the country was for itÂprobably 60 percent. Right now no one with…
Why Jews Are Not Leading an Antiwar Movement This Time Round
Lefty Jew Jeffrey Blankfort offers the same diagnosis as I have for the tepidness of the antiwar movement, the absence of Jews from the vanguard this time round. Historically, [Jews] have funded the Left… They were the major funders of…
I’m Too Harsh on My People
For a few years when I was trying to establish myself in journalism, I shared an apartment on the Lower East Side with my grandmother and grandfather (when my future wife came to visit, she called me Shtetl Eddy). One…
The Dual Citizenship Problem, Cte’d
A few more points about dual-citizenship and dual-loyalty. Last week at the Brit Tzedek event at the Village Temple, the Israeli veteran said that if the West Bank settlements were uprooted tomorrow, most of the settlers would quietly take compensation…
The Jewish Lobby, Revisited
The Forward has a nice piece this week on how U.S. Rep. John Hall, rocker-turned-Congressman in the Hudson Valley, anchored his narrow victory over Republican Sue Kelly last year by winning the burgeoning Kiryas Joel compound of Orthodox Jews to…
Response to Tough Dove on Dual Loyalty Charge, and Others
Simkhe accuses me of ignoring a lot of other leftwing Jews’ critiques of the neocons, and assuming I’m the first Jew to notice. I’m sure you’re right; it’s not a discourse I’m that familiar with. One thing I’d note is…
Two Comments That Didn’t Get In, Re Free Speech and Jew-Hatred
Sorry writers and readers, I’m still trying to get up to speed on comment problems. Here are 2 guys who couldn’t be hear thru normal channels. The first was in response to the issue of censoring comments, something I just…
2 Apologies to My Readers
First off, I am informed that I have misquoted Max Singer on when he moved to Israel, that it was not when he was 21. I apologize. I’m taking it out now. Just as important: I realize I’ve done myself…
Urban Outfitters Stops Selling Kaffiyehs as ‘Antiwar’ Scarves
You think Jimmy Carter has problems. Yesterday on the progressive Jewish blog, Jewschool, Mobius noted that Urban Outfitters was selling kaffiyehs—the Arab scarf popularized by Yasir Arafat—as “antiwar scarves”: In hipster enclaves such as Berlin and Brooklyn, the kaffiyeh is…