Dear Mr. Conason,I occasionally read your articles and never before felt compelled to visit your email box. However, there are a couple of things you wrote to which I want to respond.
First: >>And perhaps more pertinently: "What's being lost here is the Republicans' lack of understanding of Judaism. They're decrying the behavior at 'Paul Wellstone's funeral' on Tuesday. The fact is, the funeral was Monday. Tuesday was the post-funeral celebration of his life -- a long-standing Jewish tradition ... This is how his survivors chose to celebrate his life. If the Republicans don't like it, it's none of their damned business." (The Norwegians and Swedes may be too reticent to send in their interpretations.) <<
That's just not true. There is no such "long-standing Jewish tradition" of raucous celebration so soon after a death. In fact, the only Jewish traditions regarding death involve grieving, mourning, solemnity, comforting mourners, etc.
You might find this link informative and interesting, regarding how death and mourning are treated in the Jewish religion: http://www.myjewishlearning.com/lifecycle/Death.htm -- with particular attention to the section on "The Mourning Period."
If people want to have a raucous, political rally days after the tragic death of a man, his wife and their daughter, so be it -- but please don't let anyone con you into believing that it's part of Jewish tradition.
Oh, and as for why Mrs. Clinton was just about booed off the stage of Madison Square Garden last year, I don't know exactly why the fire fighters did so (although I have some good hunches), but I'm sure that the cops' vigorous response to seeing her up there at their event brought back memories from her campaign the previous year. Especially when she very publicly called four NYC cops "murderers" when they were about to go on trial re: the Diallo shooting. I mean, she did this right when jury selection began -- didn't she (or someone on her staff) realize that such harsh words from her about the 4 cops would make big news here?! (FYI: they were acquitted after a very brief deliberation period)
I just thought I'd share those two bits of info with you.
Best wishes,
(NYC GOP Chick)
New York, NY
Mr. Hotshot Writer' response:
From: Jconason1@aol.com
Message-ID: <1ba.8d46f7c.2af5edc6@aol.com>
Date: Sat, 2 Nov 2002 22:11:02 EST
Subject: Re: On the Wellstone FuneRally
To: ...
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X-Mailer: AOL 5.0 for Mac sub 39It's always interesting to see how people rationalize their double standards.
Thanks for writing.