'Politics of meaning' guru confronts reality --- and is Left a pariah (Michael Lerner had it coming)

Jewish World Review ^ | Feb. 12, 2003 | Sam Schulman

[Alouette]

In the last few days, a flurry of activity has erupted among the anti-war movement. The pro-Saddam, pro-North Korean, pro-Pol Pot organization behind most of the big anti-war demos, ANSWER, has banned Rabbi Michael Lerner from speaking at the San Francisco demonstration this Sunday. Why? Because he's pro-Israel.

Lerner's supporters are rightly incensed about this smear. How can such a man be regarded as pro-Israel? A group of largely Jewish writers, intellectuals, poets and other publicity-seekers argue, furiously, that he cannot be called pro-Israel: "Rabbi Lerner has been an outspoken critic of Israeli policy in the occupied territories, has endorsed ANSWER's antiwar rallies in the past, has signed the Not in Our Name petition against the war, and is widely known to be among the most progressive of American rabbis."

Lerner's friends don't nearly do him justice. When, in response to an attempt to give the Palestinians a West Bank state, the Palestinian Authority launched the latest Intifada in the fall of 2000, Lerner spoke out. He deplored the fact that fewer Israelis were killed by PA terrorism than were Palestinian terrorists by Israel's army. Were more Israelis to die, he felt, there would be more sympathy for Israel.

His friends also should have remembered Lerner's statement in the days immediately following the destruction of the World Trade Center towers, in which he blamed America - and "the way that we are living [and] organizing our societies" - for motivating the terrorists to destroy thousands of innocent lives.

[Revolting cat!]

Lerner is whining today on the editorial page of the WSJ and OpinonJournal.com. We sure feel his meaningful pain!

[ConservativeConvert]

Good article. Lerner and his followers are the worst!

[jiggyboy]

He would be on "our" side on this issue -- A.N.S.W.E.R. is an evil organization and is stigmatizing him because he isn't continuing to be as anti-Israel (not quite the same as anti-Semitic in this case) as he was in the immediate aftermath of the WTC disaster.

[jiggyboy]

Well, let me temper that assessment. I'm too lazy to register at the WSJ to read the article and I don't want to be confronted with a pie in the face by some of the quotes and background info in it.

[Revolting cat!]

FR to the rescue - it's posted here.

[rogue yam]

The only major mainstream lefty "thinker" more insufferable than Rabbi Lerner is Cornell West. They wrote a book together called something like "Blacks and Jews." I found a copy abandoned out on the street one day in San Francisco and brought it home. You can open it up to any page and the sanctimony just drips off. It is probably the biggest pile of self-important nonsense I have ever seen in my life (and as a long-time resident of the Bay Area and a graduate of both Cal-Berkeley and Michigan that is saying quite a lot). There is no one who more deserves to get kicked around by the lefty scum than Michael Lerner. No one.

[Alouette]

I found a copy abandoned out on the street one day in San Francisco and brought it home.

That was a dangerous thing to do. I hope you didn't touch it without suiting up in the appropriate protective gear.

[usurper]

I found a copy abandoned out on the street one day in San Francisco and brought it home.

I hope you put it back where you found it. It was there for a reason.