JustASC

Quote of the day:

“However, I ask that you refrain from judging me according to the length of my beard but rather according to my experience and the operational ability I bring with me.”

That’s Jerusalem Mayoral candidate MK Meir Porush of the United Torah Judaism, quoted in Ynet, reaching out to Jerusalem’s secular residents on Tuesday as the city’s municipal elections kick off.

Joseph Epstein in the WSJ, suggesting why most Jews continue to vote Democratic:

The reason it is so difficult for Jews to vote for Republicans is largely historical. The GOP for many years seemed the party of the large corporations, the excluding country clubs, the restricted neighborhoods — all institutions dedicated to keeping Jews out — so that even now the Republican Party is associated, in the minds of Jews of a certain age, with anti-Semitism.

This only makes sense if you assume that there are no major policy differences between the two parties. But survey results suggest Jews as a group are more liberal (not just more Democratic) than not. According to the American Jewish Committee’s 2007 Annual Survey of Jewish Opinion,  43 percent placed themselves on a scale from “extremely liberal” to “slightly liberal,” while only 25 percent described thenselves as “slightly” to  ”extremely” conservative. (31 percent said they were “middle of the road.”)

It’s more than a little condescending to suggest that all those Jewish Democrats (66% of Jews identify as Democratic or Democratic-leaning, according to a June 23 survey by The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life) are merely voting atavistically, as opposed to weighing the policies of one party against another.

That’s not to say whether or not Jews should or should not vote Republican — Mr. Epstein, like Rabbi David Saperstein, is entitled to his opinion of what constitutes Jewish self-interest. And yet according to the same Pew study, Jewish respondents had the highest percentage (68%) of those who said they follow government and public affairs most of the time. If “Jews cling to the Democratic Party,” it’s not because they’re not paying attention, or hopelessly stuck on Roosevelt.

Jonathan Mark of The Jewish Week suggests why Sarah Palin is like a Chabad Rebbetzin. It’s all about those nannyish feminists:

She reminds me of about a thousand different Chabad shluchot (the rebbe’s women representatives). She’s seems friendly, sexy (forgive me) in an Orthodox way, with that magnetism, optimism, and accessibility that has made Chabad shluchot successful in 5,000 different locales, even though they are almost always considerably more right-wing — religiously and politically — than their congregants and financial supporters.

I guess we can forgive him his libido — but what about his not-so-subtly coded sexism and disdain for Jewish women who don’t fit a nicely passive “traditional” Jewish model? Check it out:

Who would you rather have a cup of coffee with on a bungalow porch, a cup that can turn into a three-hour conversation, Sarah Palin or Nancy Pelosi?

Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton come across like the Queen of Spades of a nanny state; school marms of a school you don’t want to go to. Pelosi, in particular, seems like one of those Sisterhood program chairs from a suburban temple whose calls you don’t want to answer.

Wow: Ridiculing “pushy” women AND non-Orthodox Jews. That’s a two-fer. Could he get any more condescending? Oh wait, yes, he can:

There are others outside of Chabad who know how to do it, too. Blu Greenberg, for one, the godmother of Orthodox feminism, is as smart and wise as anyone I’ve ever met, but like a Chabad woman she doesn’t enter a room like she wants you to know what she got on her SATs (or BJEs). Her voice and manner are gentle, her visions for Judaism are prophetic and compelling, all the more so because her Judaism is poetic (she’s a published poet, after all), not like Judaism’s angry left whose religion has all the appeal of a term paper, all about “J,” “P,” Deutero-Isaiah; the kind who can’t look at any biblical verse with being “troubled” by it.

I’m sure Blu is going to be thrilled by his put-down of all those Jewish gals with their academic “achievements” and their “scholarship” and their un-gentle voices. But wait, there’s more:

Chabad women don’t conduct studies. They cook a chicken (or, Sarah Palin, a moose) and invite you over on Friday night. And college students, middle-class families, international businessmen want to be there.

Jonny feels Judaism could rejuvenate itself if only its women would put aside their scholarship and their ungentle ways and get their butts in front of the stove.

At that point you’d have to ask — this is worth rejuvenating?

We’re starting to field complaints about publishing the Republican Jewish Coalition’s ads attacking Obama (see one here).

As I wrote a while back in an editorial, our (no-brainer) decicsion is based on free speech, community pluralism, the need for us to remain a viable business, and the fact that Democrats are welcome to take out ads on their own. I also emphasize that we actively solicit ads from both parties. I remind people that they would not want us to be in the position of having to reject ads that support their own candidates.

See the 2006 editorial here.

This week in the NJJN:

Everybody’s got issues: Irael, immigration, energy, Iran – in a new series, ‘What’s at stake,” NJJN asks local activists what they want to hear from the presidential candidates.

New voices: The fervently Orthodox are potent political voices in Brooklyn and New York’s Rockland County. Now, with an unusual show of unity in Somerset, members of New Jersey’s yeshiva communities are reaching out to state political leaders. 

The imam stays: Israel said he was Hamas. The U.S. government wanted him deported. Now, after a judge’s ruling rejected those claims, Muslim cleric Mohammed Qatanani of Paterson is thanking the Jewish leaders and public officials who vouched for him. 

Plus: A look at the new TV season with critic Alan Sepinwall

Woody Allen has this great joke: “Oh mom,” complains an Allen hero, “to you every non-Jewish girl is a shikse.”

I was reminded of that when reading Jewish Exponent editor Jonathan Tobin’s take on Sarah Palin:

Palin’s nomination has reignited the culture wars of the 1980s and ’90s, as liberals view her not merely as a representative of the political party they oppose, but as an icon of a culture they regard with snobbish distaste and trepidation.

These sentiments span the liberal spectrum, and quite notably reside within a Jewish demographic. A portion of whom had heretofore been open to the McCain candidacy. Judging by the reaction she has generated, Palin is well on her way to becoming the evangelical bogeywoman for liberal Jews who view her beliefs as the antithesis to all they hold dear. For them, the Palin phenomenon is a nightmare.

Well, yes — and why not? If you are pro-choice, anti-creationist, convinced by the evidence that humans are responsible for global warming, and a liberal, why wouldn’t you be opposed to Palin, who takes the opposite view on each of these issues? Why wouldn’t you view her with distaste and trepidation? And why wouldn’t that sour a fence-sitter on McCain — asuming they previously saw McCain as more moderate on each of these issues?

I just don’t understand what “snobbish” has to do with it, unless being a Democrat makes someone a snob. Plenty of Republicans view Obama with distaste and trepidation — I wouldn’t assume on that basis that they are racist, intolerant, or anything else. People need to be able to disagree with their political opposites without it being characterized as a character flaw.

In an oped the ADL’s Abe Foxman warns that “there have been increasing signs that the presidential race will present the American public with a profoundly unsettling infusion of religion and religiosity.”

Writes Foxman:

Some of what we have been seeing in this campaign is excessive and aggressive. It goes beyond a candidate’s discussing how religion shapes his or her worldview. Rather, it’s saying, “Vote for me because I’m a person of faith” — and that is directly contrary to the constitutional principle that there shall be no religious test for public office.

Actually, I don’t think the Constitution worries about a candidate making a religious pitch — by a “religious test,” it means a federal employee or elected official can’t be made to adhere to a particular faith or creed as a condition of taking office. If the voters want a Christian, a Buddhist or a Sikh, that’s okay, just as long as the government doesn’t endorse their motivation by demanding an oath or a background check. (more…)

Joe Biden tells  reporters this:

“AIPAC does not speak for the entire American Jewish community,” Biden said. “There’s other organizations as strong and as consequential.”

That will ruffle some feathers. The first sentence is undeniable. Sometimes AIPAC doesn’t even speak for AIPAC — for example, during the 1990s, when many of its leaders (not all, not all) swallowed hard when promoting an Oslo process they disdained.

As for the second sentence? The word “organizations” is regrettable, since one would be hard-pressed to pinpoint another pro-Israel organization as “strong and as consequential.” Israel Policy Forum? Not quite. J Street? Not yet. And the other bigs — ADL, AJC, et al – tend to defer to AIPAC on the lobbying front. Biden would have been on more solid ground had he said instead, “There are other pro-Israel voices and expertise that need to be heard and weighed. A senator would be a mere puppet if he unquestionably followed the counsel of a single lobbying group.”

Unless, of course, doing just that has become the working definition of pro-Israel — which would be bad for Israel, and bad for the Jews. If differing with AIPAC is considered apostasy, wouldn’t that confirm the kinds of nasty things the Carters, Walts and Mearsheimers have been saying about us?

(Looks like the Obama-Biden folks felt a need to clarify, later issuing this:

“Barack Obama and Joe Biden have both enjoyed close and effective cooperation with AIPAC over many years, grounded in their respect for its important mission to support Israel’s security and a strong U.S.-Israel relationship,” said spokeswoman Wendy Morigi. “That is a mission they share, and they look forward to continuing to work closely with AIPAC on their common goals.”)

Writing in The Guardian, Richard Silverstein asserts that Palin’s Christian rhetoric will prove a turn-off for Jews:

Frankly, candidates like Palin are the Jews’ worst nightmare. The sentiments she expresses are part of a vestigial memory we internalise about what intolerance and bigotry sounds like. This certainly doesn’t rise to the level of flat-out anti-Semitism. But we know when we’re not wanted, and as non-believers we’re not wanted in the evangelical Christian worldview, except as enablers of Jesus’ final coming…

…Until now, McCain enjoyed the highest poll ratings [among Jews] of a Republican presidential candidate in a long time (around 32%). No longer. With Palin on his ticket he can kiss a good deal of that Jewish vote goodbye. Sure, he’ll still retain 20-25% of the hardcore true believers. But forget the rest.

I’m not so sure: it depends what he means by “the rest.” For 60 to 65% of the Jewish vote, what they know about Palin only confirms why the vote Democratic in the first place. Not sure what he means by “hardcore true believers,” but I’ll venture he combines committed Republican Jews, single-issue pro-Israel voters, and Orthodox Jews whose issues are a combination of Israel and family values. Probably less than 25%, if recent history is any judge.

But if McCain attracts the Republican Jewish Coalition’s target of 40%, it will be anxiety over Obama’s pro-Israel record, real or imagined, that pushes the Jews in between into the GOP column. And if so, Palin’s version of Christianity will only help the GOP’s cause –  Evangelicals are seen as staunch allies of Israel, so much so that mainstream pro-Israel activists, even among the liberals, are willing to give them a pass on their theological nurishkeit. 

Oh, and one other factor: Tour the condos, and you’re less likely to hear complaints about Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson than you are about Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. And just try arguing that the only thing Obama shares with the latter is their skin color. These retirees have their own worst nightmares.

The New York Sun opines on the Sarah Palin/Jews for Jesus thing in a perhaps surprisingly sensible way:

But these columns have been cautioning against the idea that politicians need to be held accountable for every thing that is said from the pulpits of their congregations. In an editorial of March 18, 2008, “Obama’s Moment,” we said that religion by its nature calls forth great passion, and that religious institutions – churches, synagogues, mosques – are places where things are often said that strike the congregation in a way that they mightn’t strike the wider public.

None of this is to excuse the errors of Senator Obama’s former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, or of Rev. Kroon. But it is Mr. Obama and Mrs. Palin who are running for office, not the clergymen. To make a big issue of these kinds of things in respect of the candidates, whether they are Democrats or Republicans, would be to impose a religious test for office of the sort that the framers of the Constitution forbade, right in Article VI…”

I overlooked the Sun’s editorial back in March, even though I had written something similar the same week. The Sun’s editorial, saying Obama should be judged on his policies and not on “Reverend Wright’s demagoguery,” never got much play in pro-Israel circles, despite the Sun’s impeccable pro-Israel credentials.