Avi Safron's Chanuka letter to the New York Times

Oh dear:

To the Editor:

David Brooks is certainly correct that there is “complexity” in the Hanukkah story. But the “battle between theologies” it entailed did not pit “angry bearded” guys against champions of “the power of reason.” It was, rather, the confrontation of an utterly human-centered, amoral worldview and the God-centered convictions of Judaism.

That the casting off of the Seleucid yoke involved violence by the oppressed Jews is a truism. But bloodshed has attended many rightly venerated stands against oppression, including the one at the birth of our own country. Ideals are not always easily defended.

Reducing the defense of the essential Jewish ideal to an “insurgency campaign,” where “the good guys did horrible things,” is the sort of simplistic revisionism that is, in these deconstructive days, as misleading as it is common.

(Rabbi) Avi Shafran
Director of Public Affairs
Agudath Israel of America
New York, Dec.12, 2009

There's nothing like a letter decrying "simplistic revisionism" in which the author is guilty of the exact same thing. In case you missed it, here's where Avi did what he denounces: "It was, rather, the confrontation of an utterly human-centered, amoral worldview and the God-centered convictions of Judaism."

PS: We are all still waiting for Avi, the letter writer, to denounce rabbinic pedophilia with anything approaching the furor he reserves for gay rabbis or sloppy Timesmen.

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