The Algemeiner, via Mosaic, Jewish Survivors and Their Progeny Against Israel

The phenomenon of Jews speaking out against other Jews and the State of Israel is not new.  1,600 years ago the sages who composed the parts of the "shemoneh esrei," the 18 benedictions said three times a day by Jews at prayer, added a prayer inveighing God to act against, in my prayer book, "traducers."

That word blew my little mind as a 12-year old because I didn't have enough sense to look it up in the dictionary or the context in which the prayer was added to seek protection from them.  Loosely translated, a traducer is a heretic.  But, when added to the prayer book it was designed to protect the Jews from those would inform the Roman authorities of the Jews' secret prayer services.  In essence, they were rats who wished for the destruction of the then-existing Jewish community.

Edward Alexander's column in the Algemeiner reissued by Mosaic points out

The Jewish enemies of Israel, if they are sufficiently profligate in the expenditure of claptrap, often come to the aid of her defenders.

In this case, the enemies of those Jews claiming to be

“Jewish survivors and descendants of survivors” and also “friends of survivors,” “friend of many survivors,” “cousins of survivors,” “cousins of victims of Nazis in Ukraine,” “the great niece of an uncle who shot himself,” “spouse of hidden child,” and “relative of victims”  

have taken out full page newspaper ads to protest Israel's war against Hamas and to equate Israel with the Nazis.  Lovely.

Jews?  Maybe, maybe not.  As quoted by Alexander, the question has been answered by

the Hebrew novelist Yosef Haim Brenner when he said that “A Jew is someone with Jewish grandchildren.”

Read the full article in Mosaic here.

What do you think?

Stephen M. Flatow

No tears shed for Palestinians

Norman Podhoretz writes, Pity the Palestinians? Count Me Out. Mr. Podhoretz was the editor of Commentary magazine from 1960 to 1995. His most recent book is "Why Are Jews Liberals?" (Doubleday, 2009).   These comments appeared in the Wall Street Journal.  They are reproduced here through a link on Mosaic.

Provoked by the predictable collapse of the farcical negotiations forced by Secretary of State John Kerry on the Palestinians and the Israelis, I wish to make a confession: I have no sympathy—none—for the Palestinians. Furthermore, I do not believe they deserve any.

This, of course, puts me at daggers drawn with the enlightened opinion that goes forth from the familiar triumvirate of the universities, the mainstream media and the entertainment industry. For everyone in that world is so busy weeping over the allegedly incomparable sufferings of the Palestinians that hardly a tear is left for the tribulations of other peoples. And so all-consuming is the universal rage over the supposedly monumental injustice that has been done to the Palestinians that virtually no indignation is available for any other claimant to unwarranted mistreatment.

And why is it "unwarranted?"

As for the monumental injustice supposedly done to the Palestinians, it consists largely of losing territory in the war they themselves provoked in 1967, and the refusal of their demand that every inch of it be returned to them by the Israeli victors in that war. Such demands have always been known and universally denounced as revanchism or irredentism, most recently over the Russian seizure of Crimea. But where Israel is concerned, everything goes topsy-turvy, so that Palestinian irredentism is universally supported.

It's a great column and I recommend you read it here.

That's what I think.  How about you?
Stephen M. Flatow