Posted on 05/24/2010 10:44:19 AM PDT by Chi-townChief
Opening shot You can't walk down the street in downtown Chicago without people handing you stuff. Menus, mostly, sometimes handbills ballyhooing sales or circuses or whatever.
Typically, I accept the flier with a smile, give it a glance, and tuck it in a pocket to toss out later. I figure it's callous to rebuff hardy souls trying to scrape by on street corners. At least they're working.
Except when someone offers a colorful brochure touting Jews for Jesus -- then I draw my hand back, the smile dying on my face, and give them what I hope is a hard, peddle-your-zeal-elsewhere look.
The key fact about Jews for Jesus is that its founder, Moishe Rosen, who died last week at 78, had been a Baptist minister for 20 years when he formed the group in San Francisco in 1973.
I don't want to get caught up in the question of whether two decades of Christian ministry undermines one's Jewishness, or whether Jews for Jesus are indeed Jews at all, or just perpetrators of a not-half-as-clever-as-they-seem-to-think-it-is scam. I'm actually of the opinion that people are free to believe whatever they like and call themselves whatever they wish. Plenty of individuals embrace faiths while directly contradicting their tenets -- gay Catholics come to mind -- and passing judgment on whether a person deserves to be in the club implies that someone else can pass judgment on you.
That said, the notion that you can accept Jesus Christ as your savior and remain Jewish does remind me of the transvestite I met once at a drag ball who told me he is a heterosexual male who lives as a woman and dates men. O . . . K . . ., if you say so, pal, but it seems to muddle the boundaries a bit.
So why refuse the Jews for Jesus brochure while accepting one from every new deli? I think because they try to be hip, in a 1970s way, with coy slogans and jokey text, tossing a chummy arm over your shoulder and swearing you can eat all the bagels and cream cheese you want while still partying with your new Lord. The brochures must work -- where else do the volunteers handing them out come from? But that doesn't mean I have to take one.
1964 all over again "The Good Negro," Tracey Scott Wilson's powerful drama about civil rights, begins with what should have been an ordinary event -- a mother takes her 4-year-old to a public toilet in a department store.
But the mother and daughter are blacks living in the South, the era is the early 1960s, and the bathroom is reserved for white customers -- and so unfolds the tragedy burning up the stage at the Goodman until June 6.
When I attended the opening two weeks ago, the story line seemed firmly situated in the past. But as William Faulkner said, "The past isn't history -- it isn't even past." Suddenly there's a current politician -- Tea Party darling and Kentucky Republican senatorial candidate Rand Paul -- obligated to defend his stance on the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the landmark legislation that said little girls can't be banned from public toilets and that lunch counters selling grilled cheese sandwiches must sell them to all, regardless of color.
The specifics of Paul's statement are not important. He believes that private businesses should be free to discriminate, if they choose -- not an uncommon position for a Libertarian -- but when he found himself an actual contender, he began the furious backpedaling that most politicians do as they approach the levers of power.
"I unequivocally state that I will not support any efforts to repeal the Civil Rights Act of 1964," he said, adding that he is also against racism.
Big of him. Earlier, he had told Rachel Maddow that while the government may prohibit itself from discrimination, he draws the line at Big Brother telling businesses what to do, adding, "had I been around" when the bill was being debated, "I would have tried to modify that."
I never thought I'd live to see the day when would-be leaders are so captivated by their pet philosophies they would question 50 years of racial progress -- we just passed the half-century anniversary of the Greensboro, N.C., Woolworth lunch-counter sit-in.
This isn't about Rand Paul -- good luck to him. This is about a brand of politics -- call it Libertarianism, call it Tea Baggery, whatever -- that hates government, whatever it does, so much and sides so completely with business owners and their supposed right to decide who can use their toilets, that they'd ignore the greater right of 4-year-olds to use a public bathroom.
Today's chuckle To tuck a child in, he has to actually go to bed before you. Though that ship has sailed regarding our teenager, I still trudge up to his room, to say goodnight and put in a plug for sleep.
"He's still reading," I reported to my wife, returning.
"What's he reading?" she asked, distracted in a book.
"The Master and Margarita," I said. "By Bulgakov. The devil comes to Moscow in the form of a cat."
"Is it a novel?" she asked.
Here is where an amateur would have wrecked the laugh, perhaps by repeating, with emphasis. "The DEVIL comes to Moscow in the form of a CAT." As a pro, with almost 20 years of marriage under my belt, I knew enough to say nothing, to let no flicker of expression cross my face. Just a neutral look, patiently waiting for her question to sink in. It did.
mailto:nsteinberg@suntimes.com
Not quite. The “Jesus” promoted by groups like J4J still make out to be someone more resembling Plato than the historic person Yeshua. Groups like J4J criticize “the rabbis” and pretend that Yeshua was unlike the sages of the day. Sure, He was qualitativly better, but still used the same language and methods.. and the religion... of ancient Judaism.
I believer our founding fathers hated government but saw it as a necessary evil to keep us from anarchy, but an evil to be watched and carefully controlled.
The TEA party has much in common with our founders.
What a bunch of baloney. ALL of the early disciples of Jesus, including Jesus Himself
were observant Jews.
The Jews are blinded, Paul says, so I wouldn't be too hard on them.
However, they will get to Heaven through Jesus, or they wont get there at all.
Just wondering what the Prophets would say about about going to drag balls.
One slight edit...Translation: “I’m extremely open-minded about drag queens, but I draw the line at Christians and libertarians,”... (besides I’m an Atheist, God-Damn it!)
/s
Ding-ding-ding! We have a winner!
He is not a Jew who is a Jew outwardly; he is a Jew whose heart is circumcised toward God.
” Translation: “I’m extremely open-minded about drag queens, but I draw the line at Christians and libertarians.””
Good translation.
” The Apostles were the first “Jews for Jesus”.”
W I N N E R
The truth offends.
We are wired to recognize the truth.
He sees the truth, but doesn’t want to go there.
This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.
You got to get a charge out of some folks, they get all more charged up against a religious group who espouses “Jews for Jesus” yet remain quiet when a tin horn like Ahmandinijad threatens to obliterate Israel or when Obama dictates where the Jews can build houses in Israel.
The Lives of Others (German: Das Leben der Anderen) is a 2006 German drama film . . . :Movie TrailerWikipedia description
Probably my favorite movie. East Germany was a police state hell hole but it is still probably better than Chicago, Detroit, and other liberal cities. East Germany probably had less corruption than Chicago.
I would bet for sure that Czechoslovakia under communism was better than Chicago.
....And he was a Jew for Jesus. I wonder which part of "Jesus" Mr. Steinberg is confused about. Jews for Jesus is and always has been very direct and utterly clear about who they are.
“I never thought I’d live to see the day when would-be leaders are so captivated by their pet philosophies they would question 50 years of racial progress...”
What he means is, he never thought he’d live to see the day when a real live politician dares to question his sacred cows!
We have thanks, and he isnt the one.
Nope, Yeshayahu (Isaiah) didnt speak of him either.
Probably the part that Christianity has nothing to do with being Jewish. The two are mutually exclusive, in spite of the claims to the contrary of J4J.
And the last.
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