Posts from — October 2005

There is a website dedicated to conversations overheard in New York.

I liked this one:

Girl #1: I’d offer to set you up with him, but you’re already occupied.
Girl #2: I am not occupied.
Girl #1: Please! You’re so occupied, you’re the Gaza Strip.
Girl #2: Don’t you watch the news?

–111th & Broadway

Hat tip to: gothamist

A reason offered to justify the growth of Holocaust Museums as well as the importance of Holocaust Day is the frequently cited but erroneous belief that,

Yom Hashoah ceremonies help to fight indifference and ignorance of the recent, tragic past. It is also an effective tool to counter the efforts of Holocaust deniers who seek to convince the world that the Holocaust never occurred.

In fact, Holocaust denial has exploded with the expansion of Holocaustism, and our attempts to universalize our national tragedy.

Why did the Jewish community think this would help?

Holocaust denial rests upon conspiracy theory. No amount of documentation will convince a conpiracy theorist of its proof. Rather, conspiracy theory rejects traditional documentation itself. The larger the paper trail, the greater the conspiracy.

Why were we so reactive to these people, (even if it is only one wrong motivation among many)?

No reasonable person needs yet another museum to convince him of fact, and no virulently anti-semitic conspiracy theorist is going to trust a Jewish run museum or Holocaust Day.

Therefore we accomplish nothing towards this specific goal, but we wasted communal energy and funds, and are continuing to do so for their upkeep and programming. And incur all the other problems and resentments of and centralizing and universalizing our European tragedy.

So some Nazis pretend it is all a lie. They still do.

We should not set policy according to Nazis.

I have been in a rather shrill debate for months with an anonymous contributer on a major Jewish group blog who has seen fit to evaluate the merits of my arguments (and those of others) not on the basis of whether or not they make sense, what my sources and proofs are, but rather, whether or not they might converge with his perception of those on Stormfront, a large neo-nazi website.

I am going to go on record as saying something shockingly controversial.

Stormfront is not my Posek.

There, I said it.

Sound reasonable?

Think again. Not in large swaths of the Jewish community. Stormfront or their predecessors must sign off on many aspects of Jewish policy.

It has been going on for some time. How many Reform American Jewish organizations invoke the Nuremberg Laws when discussing a person’s status as a Jew, and to justify patrilineal descent?

When it comes to the “who is a Jew” question, F-ck the Nuremberg Laws. They have no halachic importance. None.

Just as our goal should not be to act in accordance with Nazi ideology, so it should not be to act the opposite of Nazi ideology. It’s giving them way too much of a say. They should have zero power in determining policy and debate within the Jewish community. If they say the earth is round, that doesn’t mean we should say it is flat.

And let’s take it one step further.

If we have a point of disagreement about a Jewish policy, and mine is contrary to that of most mainstream Jewish organizations, I don’t care if you think Stormfront is saying the same thing. I don’t even care if they ARE saying the same thing.

They don’t rule my world, they don’t rule my mind, and they shouldn’t rule yours.

And they should not set the parameters of debate within the Jewish community.

Only now has Democratic mayoral candidate Ferrer attempted to shift to the middle in order to capture the votes of the Jewish community.

Adam Dickter reports in the Jewish Week that,

If elected mayor, Fernando Ferrer would not seek to shift the way the city contracts social services with non-profit community groups through quotas to include more minority-run agencies, the Democratic nominee told The Jewish Week in an exclusive interview[...]Ferrer also said he did not foresee a role for the Rev. Al Sharpton, advisory or otherwise, in his administration.

Full story

Gothamist publisher and co-founder Jake Dobkin announced today that the smart and sophisticated site, “about New York City and everything that happens in it,” will begin running editorials (on Sundays) in addition to the usual content on “news and events, restaurants and bars, happenings and goings-on.”

For New York City fans like myself, this expansion itself is great news.

And good riddance. Nothing worse than a bad friend.

What better way to show that the Nazis are wrong in their focus on “Black Crime” than to riot?

Suckers.

Update: The fact that the Nazi website does not mock the blacks for falling into their trap but merely excoriates them (and others, a red herring to be sure) for rioting and notes that none of their members participated in the rioting suggests to me that not only was this their goal, but that it will be repeated in the future, as even now they don’t want to gloat and reveal their hand.

Hat tip to grandmufti for directing me to this section of their site.

The gadfly blogger, Godol Hador, is wrestling with the problem that “all the major ‘Gedolim‘ [most learned and significant Rabbinical figures of the generation] signed onto a declaration that its kefirah [heresy] to say the world is older than 6000 years.”

He continues in this line of reasoning.

“Clearly, I feel that the evidence for an ancient world is overwhelming. This forces me into a position that the Gedolim are basically just a bunch of old guys who learned a lot of Bible & Talmud. In turn, this destroys the notion of Gedolim, and the supremacy of Torah as an over-arching ideal.”

His conclusion is that,

“This is perhaps the most defining issue ever in this area, the one issue which finally and conclusively proves that Chareidi ideology is just a bunch of bull.”

The fallout may occur as a leak, but may allow for massive hemorrhaging. And this hole will prove hard to plug, as a reversal becomes increasingly difficult over the years for the Haredim.

Quiescent Jewish Fundamentalism will not have been defeated by the Modern Orthodox, the Enlightenment, nor even the temptations of the world, but by the mighty dinosaurs, which as we now know, are treif to the core.

Jewsweek, now rid of pesky, Lefty Jewcy–after horrifying them with an editorial declaration that Katrina was a devine response to U.S. pressure for the Gaza disengagement–has a front page (reprinted) article on the return of Don Adams to religion after a near death experience.

To Catholicism.

“A practicing Catholic today, Don has not forgotten that his father, whom he loves, is a Jew. And that it was the Divinity that rules over all faiths that brought him back to life. That’s why he can say, “God knows why I’m a Catholic and a Jew….”
Don’s commitment to Catholicism became firmer when he was married in the church to second wife Dorothy Bracken, an ex-June Taylor dancer. About his previous marriage, all he’ll say is, “I was married awfully young and I felt trapped. My wife had been divorced and all the time we were married we were out of the Church. It wasn’t until we were divorced that we became good Catholics again.”

Exactly where are these guys headed?

go here.