A self-rightous fisking by DovBear
*First Things*
A Continuing Survey of Religion and Public Life
by Richard John Neuhaus
"In the Case of Pat Robertson" in the August issue of Commentary is a brilliant inquiry by Norman Podhoretz into charges of anti-Semitism brought against Robertson and, more generally, against the Christian Right.
Is Pat Robertson an anti-Semite? Well, according to his book, The New World Order, Jewish financiers like the Rothschilds, Paul Warburg, and Jacob Schiff were leaders in a two-century old Freemason-Communist-Banker conspiracy to exploit American tax-payers and the members of the armed forces in America by stirring up deficit-financed wars. Does that sound anti-Semitic to you? GOP-Jews say no, no of course not. But I rather doubt the GOP Jews would be so forgiving had the same sentiment been expressed by Louis Farakhan.
After weighing the evidence with care, and censuring Robertson's delinquencies on several scores, Mr. Podhoretz concludes that Jews should recognize in Robertson and the movement he represents a friend and ally.
A question: Do Jews really need a "friend and ally" who thinks feminism "is socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians?" He's not someone I'd want to stand beside at a party.
A similar conclusion is reached by Toby Bulman Katz, writing in the Summer 1995 issue of Jewish Action, a publication of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America.
Naturally. As regular readers known Toby Rodham Katz is a big friend to Christians.
Criticizing the attacks on Christian activists by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and others, Katz writes: "If the United States becomes a noticeably more religious country over the next few years, Jews, especially secular Jews, may feel a certain level of psychological discomfort.
As regular readers also know, she is no friend to secular Jews. In fact, if she had to choose between saving the life of Christian or the life of a reform Jew, I'd bet on the Christian. In Toby's edition of Pirkei Avot, only the Jews she likes have a chelek in olam habah, you see.
However, the specific goals of the Christian Right are goals which Torah-true Jews generally share.
She's also no friend to common sense or logic. The Christian Jews and Torah True Jews have common goals? Name one. I mean aside from hating gays and fornicators. We're not of the same mind as Christians on abortion. SRH and other luminaries tell us not to worry about evolution. And it's the moshiach we eagerly await each day, not the rapture.
Furthermore, trying to thwart the popular will is more likely to provoke than to prevent anti-Semitism. We should show a face of friendship and commonality rather than one of rejection and enmity to the newly reemerging Christian majority, while maintaining a certain inevitable wariness.
That's the logic of a kapo. Really, only someone with very low self-esteem makes a political choice out of fear. Anyway: Join the enemy because otherwise we invite anti-Semtism? Vote Gop or they'll kill us? Wow. And I'm the one she alleges has a low opinion of gentiles? At least, I don't expect them to launch a pogrom if we're insufficiently Republican.
It is particularly saddening to see Jews, the people who gave the world the Bible, treating religious believers as the enemy, merely because they love our Book too well.
Only they don't love "our" book. They've jettisoned all the parts which give it Jewish meaning. Love our book? They've nutered our book, shanghaid it, and forced it into service of their Christian ideals. That isn't love. That's appropriation.