Rabbi Emanuel Feldman on the end of summer

A few weeks ago I wrote:

Ah. The end of summer. Cooler air. Mosquitoes. Kids back from camp. School on the horizon. Will it trivilize the Holocaust to speak of the end of summer as a cashmere-covered, velvet-gloved, cherry-topped sundae of a mini-Holocaust? I don't think so. After all, what is the end of summer but a loving but painful tap on the shoulder, a wake-up call reminding us that Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur are just ahead?

To my great surprise, you, in your multitudes objected to this analogy. By way of rebuttal, I've invented a highly intelligent baal-teshuva friend who, conviniently, has just finished reading a book on the holocaust. Here is his view on the subject:

Anything you say, Rabbi Feldman is good by me

There you have it. So why such gross misreadings, of my innocuous, yet sensitive, Holocaust analogy? I offer a theory (with no offense intended to shmutz l'aretz Jews, as I am one myself)

The vast majority—if not all—of those who were so upset by my remarks do not live in Israel. While the Israeli Orthodox reaction to the end of summer is highly emotional, that of American Orthodox Jewry is relatively cerebral. That's right: You Americans think too much. If you were emotion-driven hysterics like we are in Israel, you'd just blurt out whatever you happened to be feeling at any given moment and that would be the end of it.

In closing, I will follow the approach of my colleague Toby "Fox is not conservative" Katz and say that I am not being used to pretty up a blog that routinely expresses contempt for Jews. Really. I'm not.

[related: Kaspit; Abu; Godol]