When you land in LA on the 4th of July
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David Wolpe
@RabbiWolpe
Visiting Scholar , Rabbinic Fellow , Senior Adviser, Max Webb Emeritus Rabbi .
David Wolpe’s Tweets
In a lawn you cannot get equality of outcome with fertilizer and water, only with a mower.
A story about - several years ago when my daughter was 12/13 we were at a cancer benefit where Swift performed. She was the only ‘star’ my daughter cared about and wanted, despite her fear of approaching, to get an autograph. We went over to a very crowded table.
I long for the day when you knew without question which was the news article and which the opinion piece.
If a Jewish congressman made a series of anti-Muslim statements do you suppose they would pass a resolution opposing anti-Semitism?
She took my daughter’s paper, said “You are such a beautiful and sweet girl, I’d never want to get your name wrong” and signed again, correctly. She was remarkably gracious and despite her youth, every inch a star. God bless her.
Comparing things to Nazi Germany shows a genuine inability to grasp the magnitude of the Nazi’s cruelties and murders. The Shoah was not a riot, discrimination, segregation or wanton cruelty. It was the planned brutalization and execution of millions.
Surely — surely— Twitter will retract and apologize. I’m really trying to be generous here....
After years as a Rabbi I am convinced that creating loving homes, good parents and nurturing early environments is the single greatest contribution we can make to human flourishing.
Linda Sarsour with Ilhan Omar and the latter’s tweet about Israel. In case you have an “anti-Semitic selfie” file.
I don’t know why people don’t understand that genital mutilation, concubinage, underage marriage and sanctioned rape aren’t the real issues— it’s attacking the solitary democracy in the Middle East that will free women.
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Replying to @JoshMarks78
The moment that Sarsour promotes BDS at today's DC Women's March.
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Swift was very nice and signed my daughter’s paper, but spelled her name wrong. When we got back to the table my daughter looked a little crestfallen so I said ‘let’s go back.’ She was scared but we finally did. Again, Swift was mobbed.
Madame Vice President, the idea that Israel has committed genocide against the Palestinians is not someone's truth, it is someone's lie, whether they know it or not. And it is pernicious, destructive and should not be elided or ignored by the highest officials in the land.
I'm shocked, shocked to find cheating here.
They say there are no atheists in a foxhole but it might be truer to say there are no postmodernists in a pandemic.
The previous two days were Kristallnacht and today is Veteran’s day. In order to prevent evil you must be willing to fight. God bless soldiers who fight for goodness and freedom and God bless America.
It is a modern myth that you need to focus on your own growth before you can love. Through love we grow.
“How to solve nothing and inflame everything”
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Beto O'Rourke: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is "racist" and doesn't represent the "true will of the Israeli people" cnn.it/2Umh9sB
Can you have Stockholm syndrome with a Middle Eastern fanatic religious fascist regime from West Hollywood? My Iranian congregants who escaped with their lives would like to know. twitter.com/rosemcgowan/st
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Once the pandemic is over I hope we will remember that jobs we used to call 'menial' are rightly renamed 'essential.'
If you believe that Jews do not deserve a state, you are an anti-Semite (or, if you prefer, Jew hater) pure and simple.
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"We who resent being asked to denounce Zionism to participate in lefty causes should not demand that others embrace Zionism to avoid being smeared as anti-Semites," writes @bungarsargon. "Instead, we should show up and explain why Israel matters to us."
forward.com/opinion/417424
If you don't want your criticisms of Israel to be interpreted as anti-Semitism, you might begin with "I support a strong and secure Israel in its ancestral land." It makes a fine opener for measured criticism.
Here is the simple truth. If Hamas stopped raining rockets on Israel, it would be over. If Israel stopped defending and retaliating, it would be slaughter.
When asked why he wrote in Yiddish, a dying language, I.B. Singer replied, “In Jewish history, between dying and dead is a very great distance.”
So grateful to God and to law enforcement that all are safe. Sleep well, tonight, everyone.
People who are old were once young; people who are sick were once well; people who are down and out were once on top of the world. Conditions change but the dignity due does not.
This day in 1945, Auschwitz was liberated. We must never forget how they lived, how they died. #HolocaustMemorialDay
A remarkable statement from John Mellancamp - “In solidarity with the Jewish people.” God bless him.
When common culture collapses all that remains to discuss and dispute is politics — and it isn’t healthy.
A word of warning to Manicheans everywhere: the opposition is not as evil nor your side as good as you might suppose.
Tonight is #Hanukkah - the real miracle is not the oil or the victory. It is that 2,300 years later, despite persecution and wandering, Jews will still light the Hannukiah tonight all over the world.
I wish some of the people decrying Kabul would realize they are urging the same fate for Tel-Aviv.
The Talmud has some useful advice in a contentious time: "Teach your tongue to say 'I don't know.'" (Berachot 4a).
I know this sounds too lofty, but please remember as you fulminate on twitter how many good people died for that right. #MemorialDay
I thought they were chanting “Two states, side by side, in peace.” My mistake.
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Today Islamic extremists chanted death to Jews throughout Europe's capital cities.
Not one news agency reported this!
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I’ve attended AIPAC more than ten times. Every time Palestinian rights were mentioned people applauded. There are a range of views presented, left, right and center. This dismissal is unwarranted and unworthy.
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Bernie Sanders says won't attend AIPAC confab that 'gives platform to bigotry' haaretz.com/us-news/.premi
That Roger Waters displayed this at his concert in Poland of all places is unendingly odious.
From the NYT story. As a generous spirit, I’ll just say ‘lobbyists and rabbis’ is a suspicious trope at best.
Protesting injustice is righteous.
Burning and looting are evil. The distinction is not really that difficult.
Criticizing Israel is not #antiSemitism obviously. But when condemnation is wildly disproportionate, when it is uniquely anathematized, denounced in vile language, abused with stereotypes and/or Jews targeted worldwide, it is. It really is.
On this Jerusalem day, we honor the eternal capital of Israel, the city that for thousands of years has been the summit of dreams.
“Pray for the peace of Jerusalem” (Ps. 122:6)
This is Los Angeles, folks. Because beating up Jews in California will advance Palestinian rights.
Every time I post on Twitter I hear my late, wise father’s voice in my head: “You know David, you don’t always have to say something.”
I saw guards walking the perimeter of my synagogue this morning and felt both grateful for their presence and sickened at the need for it.
They didn’t fire him. You can get canceled for marginally slighting statements about gender or race, but full on anti-Semitism gets you transferred. Haters, adjust accordingly.
When you celebrate the death of your ideological opponents it is worth wondering what your ideology has made of you.
The best antidote to blackmail for embarrassing deeds is a less censorious and more forgiving public.
Actually we were about to crash a meteor into the earth causing another full scale extinction, but since you're on to us, we are postponing.
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Replying to @RabbiWolpe and @benshapiro
I'll guess you're a Jew. Since my Twitter is full of anti-semitic condemnations I'm going to assume that Jews are about to engage in some big league shady stuff. Crash the economy maybe? Cause a war with Iran? Who knows?
In the Torah the ten commandments are 'aseret hadevarim' - the ten sayings. They begin with "I am the Lord your God." There is a moral order b/c there is a Sovereign; the world and all people are connected b/c there is a God. Love is real and enduring b/c its source is eternal.
If you read the diaries of Klemperer and Sebastian from the thirties and forties you see the first step in #antisemitism is normalization. Sustaining outrage is exhausting- but imperative. Point. Shout. Do not be quiet, do not be quiescent.
This is NOT “anti-religiosity.” It is the deliberate, intentional hatred and malicious targeting of Jews for the simple reason that Jews are Jews. Jew hatred, period.
To all the insufferables who are blaming antisemitism as a reaction to Israel’s policies — 85 years ago a third of all the Jews in the world were murdered before the modern State of Israel even existed. Must be a different reason, eh?
Very fine people don’t march alongside Nazis and don’t storm the capitol with a confederate flag. People who are not at all fine do these things.
Israel was founded by people who had never run a government, never lived in a democracy, never created an army, never formed an industry and never spoke Hebrew. If you don’t see that as a miracle, you are blind to wonder.
The wildly disproportionate attacks on Israel forcefully remind us why there must be an Israel.
Please — don’t blame Jews for Jewish death. tabletmag.com/scroll/273567/
Jews, 0.2% by the way. twitter.com/spectatorindex
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“And Isaac re-dug the wells of water which they had dug in the days of Abraham his father” (Gen 28:18.) Sometimes renewal is more important than innovation.
There are no words to measure the loss and no limits to the moral demands of memory. For each murdered soul, we grieve. #HolocaustMemorialDay
Oh for God’s sake— I’ve criticized Israel and I’ve criticized AIPAC. So has every Israel loving Jew and non-Jew I know. Baird is spouting arrant nonsense.
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“If one dares to criticize Israel or dares to criticize Aipac, one gets branded anti-Semitic,” said former Rep. Brian Baird, who became an Aipac critic after a constituent was killed by an Israeli Army bulldozer, “that’s a danger to a democratic republic.” nyti.ms/2NJwj4W
1/3 of Jews in Europe avoid Jewish places out of fear 70 years after 1/3 of the world’s Jews were murdered in Europe.
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About a third of the 16,395 Jews polled this year in 12 countries by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights said they avoid Jewish events or places out of fear for their safety. bit.ly/2BcL5em
Why doesn’t Israel offer the Palestinians a state? They have, repeatedly.
To those who object to the killing of #Soleimani ימח שמו, I remind you of the sage words of the Talmud: those who are kind to the cruel will end up being cruel to the kind. How many more would he have murdered?
Allowing Israel to be condemned in an anti-Semitic forum is at best unproductive and at worst, acquiescence to evil.
An apology follows the normal laws -- the wider you make it the shallower it gets.
This week we read the ten commandments in synagogue. Moses smashed the original tablets but made new ones. Breaking a commandment doesn't mean it no longer applies, but that we have to renew ourselves and do better.
A train? A train????
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Germany’s railway names a train after Anne Frank, and social media erupts bit.ly/2xzCPlM
To the extent that Jews created Hollywood we built an industry that allowed diverse talent to thrive, and people to share magic, music, laughter and dreams. No apologies necessary.
Alan Paton tells the story of a man who comes before God after death. God asks, “Where are your wounds?” “I have none,” said the man. “Why?” asks God, “Was there nothing worth fighting for?”
Just spoke to a man from Mexico from a devout Catholic family who always felt ‘a calling’ for Judaism. Took a DNA test- 97% Jewish. When I told him yes, he was Jewish he was overjoyed. “I somehow knew.”
What cancel culture denies is growth. Everyone should always have been what they now grow into. An impossible and dehumanizing demand.
In my sermon this morning I quoted Maurice Samuel’s fantastic response when asked why people don’t like Jews: “No one likes his alarm clock.”
Yesterday I did a final confessional (vidui) at the bedside of a man I have known for decades, now in his late nineties. He used to attend minyan (prayers) every day. Now he slips in and out of awareness. When I was done, he looked at me, and said, "The world is amazing."
Which phrases best achieve the opposite of their intent? My nominee is “calm down.”
I have said hard things about and he about me — and very objectionable things about my faith. But he is a significant figure and this is a disgrace.
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"“The comfort of our membership is paramount." This is a history society? At a university? universitytimes.ie/2020/09/the-hi
When someone says something anti-Semitic, you can just criticize or try engage them. I hope to engage and change the conversation:
Dear God, on this Yom Kippur we pray that our souls be clearer, our hearts kinder, our words softer, our hands open to the needy and the lost. Draw us closer to what is best in ourselves and closer to You. G'mar Hatima Tovah -- may we be better this year.
A private corporation has more moral fiber than a major university. Bravo,
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BREAKING: @zoom_us will prohibit the use of its platform for an upcoming San Francisco State University (@SFSU) event with Leila Khaled.
In 1970 Khaled was part of the hijacking of El Al Flight 219 and tried to detonate a grenade on the airplane.
If you are healthy, if you are loved, if you are fed, If you are warm, then put aside all the causes you have for grievance, for just a moment, and utter words of thanks.
I’m sure those women’s rights activists who vilify Israel will be marching in the streets about this travesty. Oh.
Being a victim in this world is painful and tragic; allowing it to become your identity blunts your gifts and stunts your soul.
This is it. Pitch-perfect. Bravo,
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This is as good as it gets in describing what antisemitism is in 2 minutes by @Baddiel
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Hey Hollywood: The Beverly Hills Hotel and the Hotel Bel-Air are part of a group of high end hotels, ‘Dorchester’ owned by the Brunei Investment Agency.
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Starting next week, Brunei will punish gay sex and adultery with death by stoning cnn.it/2FLcTKB
Every dictator has done good things. I’m sure the thousands of political prisoners and executed rivals were grateful for the uptick in literacy.
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In “60 Minutes” interview, Sanders goes out of his way praise elements of Castro’s reign of Cuba.
“We’re very opposed to the authoritarian nature of Cuba but it’s unfair to say everything’s bad. When Castro came into office you know what he did? He had a literacy program.”
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Rick Wiles is angry that his network is struggling while Christians give money to @benshapiro, who "has the spirit of Antichrist because he denies that Jesus Christ is the son of God."
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Being constantly around sickness and death is a powerful reminder that what remains of us is not our political arguments or material acquisitions but the memories we bequeath and the love we have given and received.
