Who is a Jew — according to the National Review
National Review columnist Mona Charen writes a cranky piece about Sarah Silverman’s “Great Schlep” video and its coverage in the New York Times. Charen argues that Silverman is a prime example of a “non-Jewish Jew who substitutes liberal politics for religion.”
Forgetting the political part, Charen has a definition of Jewishness that might surprise some rabbis (including Silverman’s sister), Jewish historians, and about, oh, a few million secular Jews in Israel and the Diaspora (mind you, Silverman never says in the interview that she is “not a Jew” — that’s Charen’s [counter-factual] interpretation).
Writes Charen:
As Silverman admits in the Times profile, she isn’t really Jewish. Though she comes from a Jewish background and can pronounce a few Yiddish words, she is not a Jew. “I have no religion. But culturally I can’t escape it. I’m very Jewish.”
Maybe from the point of view of the Times she is. And certainly because she claims Jewish ancestry, she gets a blanket immunity from the charge of anti-Semitism – and apparently from the charge of racism as well.
Oh, that gullible New York Times, which seems to have swallowed whole the idea that someone born of a Jewish mother who declares herself “very Jewish” is actually a Jew. Next time they should consult Rabbi Charen.
JustASC is written by Andrew Silow-Carroll, Editor-in-Chief of the 
October 13th, 2008 at 4:07 pm
But that makes perfect sense, if you assume that Judaism is a sect of Christianity — one compensates for its doctrinal defects (don’t accept Jesus) with over-the-top OCD religious commitment (don’t shake hands with women). It’s precisely David Klinghoffer’s shtick.
This is a prime example of how the right-wing “Judeo-Christian” rhetoric and Judeophilia actually masks real anti-Semitism.
October 14th, 2008 at 7:15 pm
http://www.nypost.com/seven/10142008/postopinion/opedcolumnists/the_o_jesse_knows_133450.htm?page=0