The daffy, self-consumed, areligious editor of the weekly Jewish Journal commonly writes as if he were a disaffected Methodist on a secret recruiting mission for the Church of Scientology, baby.
Devout as a stone, Mr. Editor is a hardcore liberal. His political written convictions consistently have trumped his wispily written “religious” beliefs.
This is all right in the second largest Jewish community in North America where most Jews take their religion like their toast, lukewarm.
The readership ain’t going to rap his knuckles.
To them, Israel is every scintilla as significant in their lives as Outer Bulgaria and Inner Sanctum.
The Jewish Journal was not organized in the 1980s, nor is it published today, for serious Jews, committed Jews. Its audience, probably typically, is the annual or every other year Jew.
Lest you think this is hyperbolic, Mr. Editor, husband of a rabbi, predictably planted his patent leathers, narrowed his eyes down to the breadth of his leftist views, and stood unblinkingly yet again against Israel in this week’s edition.
If the FBI couldn’t uncover evidence of his remote interest in, knowledge of, abstract commitment to Judaism, how praytell, could readers detect a weak glimmer of Yiddishkeit in him?
As the lead essayist in the secular Torah for the overwhelmingly secular Jewish community of Los Angeles, however, Mr. Editor creates influence in the fleeting minds of emotional thinkers who tread daintily and infrequently amidst their Jewish roots.
With anti-Semitism flashing across Europe and rising to its most perilous levels since Nazism was defeated 70 springs ago, Bibi Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, has urged Jews to come home to the only Jewish state in the world.
Flee the Muslim barbarians and come home to the land God willed to the Jews 3300 years ago, Mr. Netanyahu said the other day after another Jew was murdered by another Islamic fanatic.
Desired Objective
Our Torah tells us that making aliyah, going up to Israel, is sacred, the life’s goal of many religious Jews and several secular ones.
As an anti-Torah non-scholar, Mr. Editor spat on Jewish tradition when he flippantly wrote:
“The idea that when trouble comes, we run to Israel, just doesn’t sit right for many reasons.”
As the non-serious editor for the non-serious crowd, he not only fails to support the claim of “many,” he offends even vaguely educated Jews with his crude, insecure counterpoints.
They would make a rabbi guffaw — after he recovered.
First, he lightly argues, “Israel is not safer for Jews” than Europe. It is insulting and, of course, a lie.
Truth? It Doesn’t Live Here
This guy could replace both Jon Stewart and Brian Williams.
Second, he contends that Jews should not return to their homeland because they “cannot let hundreds of years of European Jewish history, tradition and culture come to a screeching halt because of some Islamic thugs.”
Third, the would-be, upside-down Jewish comedian advances his most pathetic assertion, which he calls his best argument.
Borrowing the reasoning of a left-wing London professor, Mr. Editor says that we Jews no longer are isolated as the single target (of Nazis) as we were in the 1930s.
Muslim terrorists are after all of us. Besides, they have killed more Christians and fellow Muslims than Jews, he says.
“This is not just a Jewish fight,” he says.
We should stay put and put up our dukes.
Why be safe?
As his cerebral twin famously said, “What, me worry?”
