Sunday, December 25, 2005

"I am the best Jew who ever lived" by Dennis Prager

We've been remiss in not addressing Dannis Prager's immodest response to that great article about the Uncle Jakes.

As you recall, M.J Rosenberg said Dennis was a big fat Uncle Jake just because Dennis carried a lot of water for Mel Gibson's famous Jew hating flick Mad Max, Beyond Thunderdome. As Rosenberg tells it, Prager and the rest of the Jakes will accept any outrage and agree to any immolation of real Jewish values, so long as Christian religious groups continue taking church-group tours of Israel where they comicaly dunk themselves in the knee-deep Jordan "river."

Anyway, Rosenberg's complaint made Prager (and possibly the baby Jesus) weep:
Jews who support the Christian right are "Uncle Jakes."

So says a pro-Israeli Jewish official in his recent column for the Israel Policy Forum, a pro-Israel organization. "Uncle Jake" is M. J. Rosenberg's term for Jewish equivalent of "Uncle Tom." Just as the left sees conservative blacks as traitors to African-Americans, so it sees conservative Jews as traitors to the Jewish people.

I am the "Uncle Jake" most criticized in the Rosenberg column.
Cue the violins
Speaking personally, I have been called many things in my life, but "Jewish traitor" is a first. For the record, and offered with obvious embarrassment at having to list these things about myself, here is a brief review of my Jewish activities
Since Dennis is so embarrassed, we'll skip to the end of his list
And I have brought tens of thousands of Jews back to Judaism and Jewish identity -- Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox.
Tens of thousands? Wow! You're a walking NCSY chapter. Tell me this, though: When all those Jews come rushing back to Judaism, do they eat chicken with milk and vote Republican? Because if they don't, I'm not too sure you'll count them as Jews.

Folks, Prager's dispute with Rosenberg (and vice verse) boils down to this:

Rosenberg: Jews like Prager are willing to sell out everything that is unique and special and good and humanistic and sweet and pretty about the religion of our ancestors in exchange for a few fighter planes for Israel and a good spot in the church parking lot.

Prager: Yeah? So what?