Say No to Rabbis for Obama

Now that the American election is over and this will not seem to be a partisan attack, it is time to ask whether it was appropriate for hundreds of rabbis to launch an unprecedented organization, "Rabbis for Obama." The organization's founding letter, which over four hundred rabbis signed, said: "We join together as rabbis who believe that Barack Obama is the best candidate to be President of the United States, and we do so in the belief that he will best support the issues important to us in the Jewish community."

This initiative constituted a clear attempt to give a rabbinic hechsher - stamp of approval -- to Barack Obama. There is nothing wrong with a rabbi, as an American citizen, choosing to endorse a candidate. But there is something unseemly about rabbis pooling their theological and spiritual authority as rabbis to boost a particular politician.

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Zionism perverted

Morris Talansky's tearful testimony about how "foolish" he felt when he realized that Ehud Olmert had exploited his "love" - yes, Talansky used those words - exposes the Israel-Diaspora relationship at its worst. It represents the Zionist dream perverted, conjuring a comic book universe where swaggering Israeli sharpies acting like superheroes manipulate the Zionist guilt, Galut (exilebased) insecurity, and Jewish idealism of Diaspora saps. If the mafia supposedly demands omerta, silence, reducing innocent citizens to cowed sheep, the Israeli political Mafiosi now lives by Olmerta - "magiya li [I deserve it] - bullying normally tough Jewish businessmen into becoming easily-conned pushovers.

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Where Left and Right can meet

George W. Bush came to Israel bearing great gifts. With the Zionist narrative of Israel's founding being assailed worldwide, with magazines like The Atlantic Monthly asking "Is Israel Finished?," the President of the United States gave Israel an emphatic bear hug. The embrace was sincere; Bush has no more elections to run. He spoke for posterity not for Jewish votes.

Bush visited Masada, and viewed the Israel Museum's 2,000-year-old scroll of the Book of Isaiah. Both stressed the Jews' historic connection with the land of Israel, along with the biblical values Israelis and Americans share. Bush’s speeches celebrated Israel's past, present and future, recounting how an oppressed people found redemption and achieved greatness by rebuilding their old-new land.

Sometimes, Israel's dreams and realities converge

In Israel, Yerushalayim shel malah and Yerushalayim shel matah clash continuously, the ethereal, heavenly Jerusalem confronts the corporeal, earthly Jerusalem. Considering Zionism's magnificent dreams, and many of Israel's ugly problems, the collision between Israeli dreams and reality is often jarring. But what keeps Israel going are those other moments, when the modern miracle of Israel fulfills the Jewish people's highest aspirations and most compelling ideals. Those are the moments that make it all worthwhile, that sustain Israel's citizens and supporters through the many daunting challenges.

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Why I am a moderate

I am a moderate. I embrace my centrism proudly, assertively, passionately, unapologetically - but not violently, intolerantly, or fanatically, of course.  I dislike extremism, zealotry, orthodoxy, and partisanship. I abhor all or nothing, take it or leave it, approaches. I believe life is more complicated than the black-white, red-blue, Ebert & Roeper film critics' thumbs-up-or-thumbs-down approach so prevalent today. I seek balance, temperance, alternative viewpoints, middle paths, syntheses, synergies, unlikely alliances, even paradoxes, creative tensions and shotgun marriages, especially in politics. 

"What’s a moderate to do," I often wonder as I read shrill blogs and increasingly angry books from the left and the right, as I watch the maneuvering in Congress and the screaming in the Knesset. Those of us who define ourselves as moderate or nonpartisan get hit from both sides. Too many people need to imprison everyone in neat little partisan boxes, and resent those who see complexity, acknowledging flaws and strengths on both sides. Today, for too many people, too many of the differences line up all too neatly, toxically - politically, religiously, sociologically, culturally - dangerously reinforcing each other. In America the "reds" tend to be more conservative, religious, moralistic and angry. The "blues" tend to be more liberal, secular and libertine - yet still angry. Similarly in Israel, the differences pile up dangerously with the "orange" camp, as the more conservative, religious and moralistic types facing off against the liberal, secular, libertine "blues." The mirror-image mutual contempt is palpable, unproductive, toxic.

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