But as I read Mark Steyn's truly majestic smackdown of Bernie Farber in the latest issue of Maclean's Magazine (on the newsstands now in Canada, but will be posted to Steyn's web site in the coming days), I thought to myself how the organized Jewish community feels about finally getting some major ink in a national magazine-under these circumstances.
Is there nothing that might embarrass them into rethinking their liberal orthodoxy? If this piece doesn't, then we may well be having deja vu all over again, watching the thickest bunch of supposedly bright, and affluent Jews once again becoming living Ostritchovictches-burrying their keppes in the sand, just like their grandparents and great-grandparents did in Europe not so long ago.
Unfortunately, it is very difficult for Jews to contribute to the main Jewish fundraising organization-the United Jewish Appeal-without supporting this lunacy. The money is linked.
So, what I would encourage people to do is to consider taking the money that they normally donate and instead-take a trip to Israel. Just do it. If you buy a ticket on El Al, stay in Israeli hotels and eat in local restaurants, buy some tchotchkes here and there, and rent a car-in my opinion-you will be helping Israel and Israelis much more than through a donation of exactly the same sum to the community.
The big donors, "liberals" and Canadian Jewish Liberals, can continue to support the same old, same old, regime that they seem to really like.
Or you might consider supporting charities that do good works in Israel with less overhead and a less massive bureaucracy, and slightly less egomaniac honourific titles. I personally like Israel's Disabled Soldier's Welfare Fund (Beit Halochem) and Magen David Adom (the Israeli equivalent of the Red Cross). There is also Keren Malki. I will update with hyperlinks in the coming days.
Steyn says that the fetish like preferences of "such insecure types" who would rather state censors policed dissenting opinion is "neither here nor there"-that's nisht ahin nish aher in Jew-talk (update: a commenter has corrected my broken Yiddish-it should be "nisht ahin nisht aher")
And that is the only place where I disagree with Steyn. It's here and there. The free speech issue is not going to go away. It will remain a litmus test between true lovers of freedom and the poseur "yes, but" opposition. It is pathetic to see Jews once again deferring to cautious leadership and thinking that if we are just nice enough to everyone else, just liberal enough-if we shed enough of our real, Jewish skins, that people will finally leave us alone and we have somehow revenged the past. It's a dangerous gamble-one we have already lost. The ongoing ideological battle between statists and proponents of individual liberties and responsibilities is both here, and out there. There are only too many totalitarian eyes on these seemingly incidental episodes in the crumbling of Judeo-Christian society as we know it.
4 comments:
that should be "nisht ahin nisht aher"
Allow me to declare myself a goyish fan. (Disclaimer: I'm a Roman Catholic Cuban-American writing from Florida.)
I link to your site often from Mark Steyn's home page. I'd like to congratulate you on the clarity and incisiveness of your writing . . . not to mention the good common sense.
Your recurring theme--the obtuseness of what Ezra Levant likes to call "official Jews," their propensity for not recognizing their true friends and enemies-- is not unique to Jews. Would that it were, for the sake of the Jewish people; you can have the luxury of being the crazy uncle in the attic room when you are surrounded by rational family members, ready to protect you from the world and your own eccentricities. If you are the crazy uncle and your caregivers go mad themselves, then you are in real trouble!
Unfortunately, Jews outside Israel (and even a significant minority inside, according to my Israeli pen pals) merely manifest a more concentrated strain of the "liberal disease," as defined by Robert Frost's famous aphorism, that, "A liberal is a man too broadminded to take his own side in a quarrel." The problem is now civilizational in scope, as Mark Steyn has so ably argued in many places. Still, we can only soldier on to the end, and, as long as even a few voices of common sense--like yours and Mark's--can make themselves heard, hope is alive. (Who would have bet in June, 1940, that Britain would prevail over the Nazis?)
Thank you for doing your part in the frozen wilds of Canada!
Thank you very much for your comment. Please feel free to e-mail me-I would be delighted to converse with you on these topics.
I just got a heartfelt e-mail from my Hadassah chapter touting "immigration reform."
Hadassah is also a big fan of "women's reproductive rights."
I continue to give them money because of all the good work they do, even though they are urging all their members to "think green," which always makes me want to go out and burn some tires.
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