I'm glad you noted that. My posting of this article was prompted by a different thread posted yesterday: America isn't a 'Christian' nation [BARF!].
Jonathan Tobin (who evidently would have considered Yehoshu`a Bin Nun a "right wing extremist") owes Rabbi Lapin an apology, not only for accusing him of self-hatred, but for belittling his organization and campaign.
I disagree. Tobin acknowledges that Lapin is right on two major points: that some Jews on the left have been too quick to stigmatize Christians as anti-Semites, and that there is a problem with the decline of public morality. Tobin's objection is the extent to which Lapin is willing to blame this moral decline on Jews. For Lapin to cite Mein Kampf to buttress his argument is, IMO, beyond the realm of acceptability.
Rabbi Lapin is a scion of a distinguished Lithuanian Rabbinic dynasty.
Frankly, so what?
First, I don't give a rat's tachat who founded this country or any other. That has nothing to do with Objective Religious Truth. People who scream "this is a chr*stian nation!" are implying that each nation has its own "true" religion to which it is bound, and since America was founded by chr*stians, Americans are "supposed" to be chr*stians. All people everywhere are supposed to acknowledge the objective truth! Anyone who calls himself a chr*stian because that's what George Washington supposedly was simply cannot be very orthodox in his beliefs!
Secondly, Rabbi Lapin is sanctifying the Name of G-d and vindicating the good name of Israel by attacking Jews who not only reject HaShem and the Torah, but do so publicly and imply that the essence of Jewishness is disobedience of G-d and immorality.
As for Mein Kampf, while Hitler (yimach shemo vezikhro!) was actually opposed to morality (which he considered Jewish) he used the moral sensibilities of chr*stianized (and therefore Judaized) Germans and their repugnance of decadence to turn them against `Am Yisra'el. The absence of decadent leftist Jews would not have changed his hatred, but he would not have had them to use in order to manipulate the population into hating the Jews.
There is Qiddush HaShem and there is chillul HaShem. People like Foxman, Streisand, and Hoffman commit the latter. Rabbi Lapin is bringing about the former.
And if you think that his criticisms of fellow Jews is "beyond the pale," kindly consider the Torah's penalties for violations of Torah Law (including not only the death penalty, but also the `ir haniddachat). If criticism of Jews for decadence makes a Rabbi an anti-Semite, then HaShem must surely be the greatest anti-Semite of all (with Moses a close second!).
For Tobin to disagree with Lapin because he quoted from Mein Kampf is an ad hominem, by definition distracting from the point. Lapin makes sense that if a group is portrayed as seriously out of sync with its culture, you can expect the culture to strike back in some way and that it is worse still that members of the group contribute to the smear. That is all.
Tobin, in order to slime Lapin, took a cheap shot. What's new?