Free Republic

Jewish liberals, like other liberals, believe that there are three positive traits that describe liberals far more accurately than they describe conservatives — compassionate, intellectual and open-minded. Though I am a Jewish conservative, I don’t believe that either side has anything close to a monopoly on compassion. There are compassionate Jews who are conservative and compassionate Jews who are liberal. As regards being intellectual, I acknowledge that there are more Jewish intellectuals who are liberal — since there are a lot more Jewish liberals, there will be a lot more liberal Jewish intellectuals. But I doubt that the percentage of...

The following NewsMax article is by a prominent Reform rabbi (Reform Jews are the most liberal and Democrat-voting) who levels a serious charge against the President Obama: While he isn’t personally holding the gun that killed two security guards at the Holocaust Museum, Obama’s attitudes and policies are not helpful to Jews. Obama Breeds Climate of Hate Against Jews Wednesday, June 10, 2009 9:12 PM By: Rabbi Dr. Morton H. Pomerantz Next, influential Jewish lefty Marty Peretz has been especially critcial of Obama at his magazine The New Republic. [h/t Ed Lasky at the American Thinker] Peretz’s forthcoming article “Narrative...

Israeli strategy is all too often constructed, if not dictated, by American foreign policy and in particular, the American President. How then could American Jews risk the survival of the State of Israel on a man who they knew befriended and listened to an anti-Semitic pastor for 20 years, surrounded himself with anti-Semitic friends and advisors, promised to unconditionally reach out to Israel's (and America's) enemies, and flip flopped on the status of Jerusalem? I have been clear that the status of Israel was too essential to the survival of the Jewish people to risk its continued existence with a...

Arab-Americans overwhelmingly support Senator Barack Obama for president. So do Jewish-Americans. One of these two groups either does not care much about the Arab-Israeli conflict and/or is stupid. My money is on the Jews.

On August 28, 2007, the same day that Abdullah Gul became Turkey's President -- replacing his secular predecessor, and further consolidating the ruling Islamic AK (Adalet ve Kalkınma) Party's (AKP) hold on power -- MEMRI published excerpts from a chilling interview given by former Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan. The interview originally aired July 1, 2007, as part of Erbakan's campaign efforts in support of Islamic fundamentalist political causes before the general elections of July 22, 2007, and the AKP's resounding popular electoral victory over its closest "secularist" rival parties.

Pastor John Hagee, the firebrand evangelical Christian minister from San Antonio, Texas, had thousands of pro-Israel activists standing, clapping and chanting at this year’s annual convention of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Hagee’s virtuoso performance at the conference in March underscored his emergence as a linchpin in the growing political alliance between Jewish and evangelical pro-Israel activists. Less well known is that Hagee, who in February 2006 founded the first Christian pro-Israel lobbying group — Christians United for Israel — is working to extend his influence beyond power centers in Washington, to Jewish and evangelical communities across the country....

Washington - The simmering debate over American policy toward Israel and the role of the Jewish community in shaping it exploded with near-nuclear force this week. Several of the nation?s best-known international affairs commentators fired salvos at pro-Israel lobbyists and defenders of Israel fired back with unprecedented fury. In the space of three days, major critiques of Jewish lobbying were published by controversial billionaire George Soros, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Nicholas Kristof, the respected British newsmagazine The Economist and the popular Web site Salon. The replies were furious. The New York Sun accused Kristof and Soros of spreading a ?new blood...

I had an opportunity last weekend to take a mental snapshot of the Jewish liberal species at Limmud New York, a learning conference held at the Friar Tuck Convention Center in Catskill, N.Y. Of some 900 people present for the beautifully organized smorgasbord of presentations on religious, political and other topics, I was probably one of about five Republicans. I was also among the 100 or so speakers. The slogan of the multi-denominational event, a four-day party for Jewish intellectuals, was “Jewish Learning Without Limits.” The buzzword was “pluralism,” but what stood out was the limitations of liberal tolerance. Don’t...

Strong affirmations entail strong actions. Simon Wiesenthal weighed less than 100 pounds when American troops liberated Austria’s Mauthausen concentration camp on May 5, 1945.[1] The former architect then devoted his life to bringing Nazi criminals to justice—criminals like Karl Silberbauer, the Gestapo member who arrested Anne Frank and her family in 1944.[2] Wiesenthal also confronted the new anti-Semitism of his time: demonizing Israel. In 1968, he issued a report on East Germany’s anti-Israel campaign after the 1967 Six Day War. Titled “The Same Language: First for Hitler—Now for Ulbricht,” Wiesenthal examined parallels between Nazi propaganda against Jews and East Germany’s...

So Al-Qaeda operatives planned to blow up a mall in Ohio. Big deal. Saddam’s WMD’s found in pieces spread out over the Middle East? Who cares. Headlines of unbridled importance are routinely banished to the dung heap of random word garbage. What else has been buried in the crevasses of common sense? I recently spoke to a hateful Jewish liberal intellectual who pointed out the president’s resemblance to an orangutan. As a Jew, I understood Jewish liberal hatred of the President -- his stupidity, his stupid religion, his stupid Middle East policies, his stupid rejection of the UN, the stupid...

American Jewry`s Outdated Orthodoxy By Steven Plaut Most American Jews are orthodox. No, that`s not a misprint, nor is it a sign that I`ve taken leave of my senses. In fact, the bulk of American Jewry is very orthodox. The problem is, they`re very orthodox in their liberalism, not their Judaism -- and therein lies the answer to all the costly studies, surveys and polls commissioned by Jewish organizations in their never-ending quest to understand why Jews are assimilating themselves out of existence. Diaspora Jews have long suffered from serious psychopathologies, most notably a virulent strain of assimilationist self-hatred. Western...

Editorial THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS: Ariel Sharon's tactics are having an effect on Jews in America. The Jewish people's fifth column - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - By Avi Davis/Jewsweek.com Jewsweek.com | The panel discussion in the Los Angeles auditorium was so weightless it could have been held on the moon. There was, I’ll admit, a certain otherworldly atmosphere to the gathering, a disconnect that made me feel as if I had stepped through a time warp. Antiquated slogans, such as "give...