In which I sincerely praise Avi Safran for a job well done

Not that I want to become all Avi all the time, but it needs to be said that our pranoid and insecure friend has done an absolutely wonderful job destroying Yitzchak Frnkfurter, the pious fraud who runs Ami magazine. You can see Avi's handiwork after the jump. As you read, take note of his practiced use of the velvet stiletto as he deploys kind words, deference and displays of homage and respect. Yet, between the lines, Avi's unmistakable message for Frankfurter is "You, sir, are a stupid jerk"


A Second Salvo at Obama

By Avi Shafran, on September 3rd, 2012

In his editorial last week, Ami’s editor Rabbi Yitzchok Frankfurter raised an important point about religious Jews’ presidential election priorities.

An interview he conducted earlier this summer included assertions about President Obama that, were they true, would properly earn the president the opprobrium of Jews concerned with Israel’s wellbeing (all Jews, one hopes).

While reasonable people can certainly think that a Republican president would be better for Israel, I subsequently pointed out that the assertions that appeared in Ami were unsubstantiated.

[DB: Odd, isn't it, how Avi and I disagree about evolution, the motives of the media, the role of the Rabbis, and the respect owed to scientists and heterodox Jews, yet we agree that people who lie about Obama can't be countenanced.]

Now Rabbi Frankfurter has now chosen to level a new charge against the president, about his “social agenda,” which Newt Gingrich informed (or told) Rabbi Frankfurter is to create a “very, very secular America, in which religion can exist for about one hour a week.”

[DB: Why do people continue to take morality lectures from philandering skeezballs like Newt Gingrich? And not only did the man cheat on his wife, as a convert to Roman Catholicism he also cheated on his God. Why, I must ask again, do men like Frankfurter, who refuse to appear in public alongside decent, moral coreligionists such as Rabbi David Wolpe, seek blessings and advice from a cross-worshiping windbag like Gingrich?]

That alleged “ongoing effort to chase G-d out of the public sphere” (Rabbi Frankfurter’s words) began (in Mr. Gingrich’s) “with the Supreme Court decision on school prayer in 1963.” When Mr. Obama was two years old (the little rascal).

[DB: Well played Rabbi S.]

My defense of Mr. Obama on the issues of Israel and national security were never aimed at promoting his candidacy, but simply an effort to respect truth, and to urge the shunning of over-the-top electoral propaganda. As I stated in an earlier Cross-Currents posting, I haven’t even “myself decided for whom to vote.” While I am comfortable with Mr. Obama in the realm of geopolitics, I explained, “the president’s positions on some social issues trouble me.”

[DB: Nicely done. ]

My main concern with Mr. Obama’s social vision, though, is not that he is banishing G-d from America; he is not. My problem is his personal endorsement of redefining marriage.

[DB: He's not redefining erusin or kidushin, the only kinds of marriage that ought to matter to believing Jews. What the president has endorsed is the redefinition of a man-made social construct. Over time all of our social constructs, marriage included, have been redefined (polygamy anyone?) and as we go forward they will likely be redefined again and again.]

But that is not, it must be said, an issue on which any president has direct influence. The sad truth, no matter what partisan politicians claim, is that American citizens, aided by the purveyors of popular entertainment, are to blame for the societal shift on that issue, as they largely are, too, for the lessened concern for life at its beginning and end. No occupant of the White House since 1963 can really be pointed to as having played any role in the current cultural decay.

[DB: This is not the time or the place for me to demolish these errors. We're focusing here on what Avi does well, not on the silly things he often says.]

What’s more, whether a liberal social issues stance is reason for a candidate to be shunned by Orthodox Jews is not unarguable. Other factors, from Israel’s security to social aid programs, may mitigate our desire to have leaders who share some of our religious values. Anyone who feels that we can’t go wrong with a bearer of traditional, conservative views might consider two words: Pat Buchanan.

[DB: Boom!]

Which is not in any way to equate Mr. Romney, or even less vacillating conservatives, with an odious anti-Semite. It’s only to recall that things aren’t always (in fact ever) black and white in politics, something many of us seem to forget in the heat of campaign seasons.

And yet Newt Gingrich—hardly nonpartisan (or a respectable authority on morality)—“convinced me,” says Rabbi Frankfurter, that the “present administration” and its “secular liberal agenda” have played a role in the current “antireligious attitude.” Examples cited include how “religious Jews are subjected to a biased and prejudiced press” (something I’m pretty familiar with in my role as Agudath Israel’s media liaison—and which I can report has been going on for decades); and how “our religious practices, such as those relating to circumcision, are being curtailed by the government.” How President Obama has influenced Germany or the New York City Department of Health is not clear.

[DB: This is me nodding in admiration.]

Equally unclear is Rabbi Frankfurter’s final concern, that “once Israel becomes a religiously observant country, and rabbinic leaders … have a final say in Israeli affairs, Israel will be perceived by the [Obama-secularized] U.S as a fundamentalist state, like Iran.”

I wasn’t aware of any push to make Rav Steinman prime minister, and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t have his sights on the job. What religious Jews hope for before Moshiach arrives, I believe, is only that the democratic state of Israel accommodate their needs, preserve Jewish identity, and recognize the vital role of Torah study in protecting Jews. As to after Moshiach’s arrival, I don’t think we will need to be concerned then about what any American president may feel or do. Rabbi Frankfurter and I are in agreement, I know, in our hope for that day’s imminent arrival.

[DB: Of course the finale was too weak for my liking, but I'm still in awe of how completely - and politely - Avi undressed his rival.]

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