Posted on 01/25/2005 9:44:18 AM PST by churchillbuff
Good point. I have made it a mission in life to alert my fellow Jews to the dangers of aligning themselves with the left. And the danger becomes more evident every day. David Horowitz makes a wonderful case for why Jews should be conservatives. So does the acerbic, but great Mark Levin.
I dislike this article and find it amounts to self-hatred and appeasement.
Why does Rabbi Lapin lump all Jews together? Are they a monolithic group? Does Barbara Streisand speak for all Jews or even any Jews? Her movies and political positions are not Jewish ones per se in any way. She is no Jewish leader, pillar of the community, or Jewish spokesman. Does Ted Kaczynski represent Polish people because he happens to be Polish? Do the Mafia represent Italians, or do Italians consider such a comparison anti-Italian bias? Does John Kerry speak for Catholics? Does Pat Buchanan? How about Martin Scorcese? If I found fault with Catholics and condemned their ranks as a whole because of the statements of some who are not their spokesmen, who are not faithful to their doctrine, I would be demonstrating anti-Catholic bias. Do Christians by birth who advocate for eliminating “God” from all public life represent Christianity or the community of religious believers? Of course not.
The idea that individual people who happen to be Jews represent the entirety of the Jewish population, and that blame attaches collectively to all Jews for the acts of some who are not their representatives, is anti-Semitic. In Europe a New Anti-Semitism has arisen because the left and Muslims dislike Israel and calls Israel racist. Leaving aside the inherent bias of this position against the Israelis, another problem exists. Why are all Jews lumped with Israelis? That too is just an excuse to find fault and dislike an entire group, Jews, for the actions of others. Thus in France Synagogues are fire bombed because of the second Intifadah and Israeli policies. This we can all clearly recognize as anti-Semitism under a transparent guise. Jews in France are not responsible for, nor do they necessarily endorse Israeli policy. Disliking Jews because Streisand or the ACLU are leftwing idiots and anti-religious, respectively, is no different except in degree, non-violent.
What Rabbi Lapin should be doing is pointing out how very far Ms Streisand is from the Jewish position. He should be noting that her positions have nothing to do with Judaism or the community, instead he has elevated her status into a community representative and thus must now apologize for her.
Interesting observation. It reminds me why I loathe Foxman, the ADL - and all the anti-christian commentators who happen to be Jewish and who denounced Mel Gibson and the Passion and smear christianity as somehow being responsible for antisemitism. These bigots never try to reconcile their slurs against christianity with the fact of widespread antisemitism in the Muslim world (which, by definition isn't Christian) or among Leftists, who also aren't Christian. The anti-Christian, anti "Passion" fulminations of so many Jewish leaders or commentators (Foxman, Krauthammer, Safire, Frank Rich, among many others) stirred up a lot of animosity. Lapin, on the other hand, has been supportive of Gibson - and of Christians' right to have their scriptures filmed and presented in movies. Bravo to him.
Only if you vote for him or Barbra Streisand:)He sounds so nice.
and all the anti-christian commentators who happen to be Jewish
Yes, "happen to be" says it all. What about the many Christian critics of Passion, or the secular fundamentalists, who "happen to be" Christian? Does that make Christians anti-religious and targets collectively? I don't think so and neither does anyone else. Jews are entitled to the same standard of individuality. Anything else betrays a double standard.
Please explain this.
What a horse's patooty they have for a bishop up there,no wonder there's so many problems in the Church.
Wow! And thanks for a great post.
Is this article legit? The Rabbi pretty much denounces elite Jewish people as in fact being profligate, even to the point of saying Hitler spoke the truth! I think he went a point too far.
This excerpt from Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf shows how that evil megalomaniac roused his nation to hurl an avalanche of destruction at the Jewish people:
Was there any form of filth or profligacy, particularly in cultural life, without at least one Jew involved in it? What had to be reckoned heavily against the Jews in my eyes was when I became acquainted with their activity in the press, art, literature, and the theater….It sufficed to look at a billboard, to study the names behind the horrible trash they advertised….Is this why the Jews are called the “chosen people”? The fact that nine tenths of all literary filth, artistic trash, and theatrical idiocy can be set to the account of a people, constituting hardly one hundredth of all the country’s inhabitants, could simply not be talked away; it was the plain truth. (Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler, Chapter II)
It does not excuse Hitler or his Nazi thugs for us to acknowledge that this maniacal, master propagandist focused on a reality that resonated with the educated, and cultured Germans of his day. Not once in Mein Kampf did that monster charge Jews with being complicit in the killing of Christ two thousand years earlier. He knew that long-ago event, shrouded in mystery and theological profundity, would never goad enlightened people to murder. Instead, he drew attention to the obvious and inescapable; that which every German knew to be true.
Wow! I love Rabbi Lapin. He really nailed it. Bookmarking this one.
Sounds like a normal paranoid rant you could find on FR. Just switch Christian to Athiest and Jewish to Christian, and they would fit right in here.
" am a Southerner from Mississippi. I have no sympathy for this article, the Rabbi's disappointment and the portrayal of Jews in something other than a positive light. We get this treatment almost in every film by the Hollywierd elitists."
That was exactly the point Rabbi Lapin was trying to make. He was pointing out, in detail, how Hollyweird with its Jewish writers, producers, directors and actors perpetrates the worst anti-Jewish stereotypes upon the American culture.
" am a Southerner from Mississippi. I have no sympathy for this article, the Rabbi's disappointment and the portrayal of Jews in something other than a positive light. We get this treatment almost in every film by the Hollywierd elitists."
That was exactly the point Rabbi Lapin was trying to make. He was pointing out, in detail, how Hollyweird with its Jewish writers, producers, directors and actors perpetrates the worst anti-Jewish stereotypes upon the American culture.
Usually not. But for you....
He makes a very good point. We hold show business in contempt for its destructive effects on our culture and many of its movers and shakers are Jews. They need to straighten up.
I really liked Meet the Parents, I thought DeNiro was great in it, and was looking forward to the sequel. However, when I found out Babs was going to star, I refused to go see it.
That is over 90% of Hollywood output. It would be great to have the list of movies Rabbi Lapin likes.
I think his point was that Hitler was looking for any plausible excuse he could find to demonize Jews, and that the Judaism-hating Jews of the entertainment industry provided a plausible excuse.
It's interesting that while Jews were very prominent in the US entertainment industry at the same time, the major Hollywood studios put morals clauses into stars' contracts and voluntarily established moral codes for the contents of their films.
The degenerates of Weimar Berlin didn't justify Hitler anymore than the rampant criminality in certain strata of the black community justify the KKK.
The Rabbi's point is that if the Jews in the German entertainment industry had been truer to Judaism and its values, they would have made Hitler's rise from anonymous crackpot to world leader that much more difficult.
In an even unkinder twist of fate, many of those same entertainment degenerates escaped safely to England and the USA while millions of decent, moral, observant Jews in the shtetls of Poland and the Ukraine were slaughtered wholesale by Hitler's thugs.
A Rebbe is the leader of a Hasidic sect. The Lubavitcher Rebbe was the most famous, but there are other Hasidic sects.
Rabbi Lapin is Orthodox but not Hasidic.
Look, it was Jewish critics of the PAssion, like Safire and Krauthammer, who dwelt on the theme that christianity was the source of the holocaust. IF you ask me to ignore that reality, you want me to live in a make-believe world.
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