From sea to shining seaBy Joseph Aaron, editor of The Chicago Jewish News
The Chicago Jewish News Online, 03/28/2008
What a country.
Even more than I knew.
I have always been amazed by, and have often written about, how this country is so amazingly great for Jews. In so many ways. How it has allowed us to flourish, both as Americans and as Jews.
Two of nine Supreme Court justices are Jews. Though Jews make up only about 2 percent of the U.S. population, we make up 13 percent of the U.S. Senate, with senators from such non-Jewish states as Wisconsin, Minnesota and Oregon. Vanity Fair magazine's list of the 100 members of The Establishment, this country's movers and shakers, includes 51, yes 51 Jews.
I could go on and on, could talk about how big a deal is made out of Rosh Hashanah, our new year, in the media, how many specials and movies there have been about the Holocaust, how much coverage tiny Israel gets in the newspapers, how many prime time TV shows feature Jewish characters.
And how, amidst all the acceptance and embrace by society, Judaism, Jewish culture, Jewish education, Jewish life is thriving, with an amazing diversity and vibrancy.
All that is true and all that is something we should be grateful for and stop taking so much for granted.
But as much as I am aware of all that, even I have been amazed recently.
Let's start with the economy.
As you may have heard, things have not been going so great in this area lately. There's been all kinds of talk about foreclosures and bailouts of big companies and shaky financial institutions and record gas prices and all kinds of high economic anxiety.
At the center of it all is one Ben Bernanke.
He's the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, which means basically that it's his job to make sure the economy doesn't fall apart. It's largely up to him to do what he can to make sure inflation doesn't get out of control, that credit doesn't tighten, that interest rates are a help not a hindrance, that big banks stay in business.
Ben Bernanke. Actually, it's Ben Shalom Bernanke.
Yep, his middle name is Shalom. Yep, Ben Bernanke is a Jew.
In fact, the very second paragraph of his life story as told on Wikipedia.com notes that his was one of the few Jewish families in Dillon, South Carolina, where he grew up. Tells us which synagogue he attended there, tells us that he learned Hebrew as a child from his grandfather, who was a professional Torah reader and Hebrew teacher.
Ben Shalom Bernanke.
And not a peep. I have looked far and wide, read the newspapers, surfed the Web and have not heard or read or found anything that in any wide makes anything out of his Jewishness.
Thanks largely to the insane housing bubble a few years back in which housing prices rose to insane levels, lots of folks have lost their homes, lots of folks have lost their jobs, lots of folks have lost their investments. If you owned Bear Stearns stock, for instance, you have seen it gone from about $160 a share not so long ago to $2 a share.
All those folks have much reason to be mad, much reason to want to find someone to blame, to have a scapegoat to pin it on.
A look at Jewish history would show you that that is where the Jews usually come in. Economic times tough, people hurting and angry? Blame it on the Jews.
And the truth is it wouldn't be at all that tough to do this time. Many say the true culprit in letting the housing market get so out of control is Bernanke's predecessor as Fed chairman. Name of Alan Greenspan, Jewish boy.
And oh, and about that Bear Stearns collapse that resulted in its employees losing their pensions and life savings and many their jobs, in its shareholders losing their fortunes, guess who was the chief executive of the company under whose watch all this took place? Alan Schwartz.
But at the center of the economy is Ben Shalom Bernanke. Jews and money, Jews and power, Jews controlling things, all have been quite potent stereotypes trotted out at tough times in all kinds of places for thousands of years.
But not here, not now. As much as I love this country, as good as I know this country has been to us, I still find it breathtakingly wonderful to see that, even when it comes to the economy, even when Jews have such a prominent role in it, even when the temptation to blame us is right there for the taking, it has not happened.
Another thing that quite amazed me recently is yet another Jewish word that seems to have seamlessly become part of the American way.
We are used to tushie and kvetch and schlep and oy vey and the other Yiddishisms that are used without blinking a non-Jewish eye. But even I was surprised when I was watching the nightly news and heard the word tchochkes used.
And in the most unlikely of settings. Horrible storms have devastated some cities in the south of late. There I sat watching a report about one town where many houses were under water. They asked one woman about how she felt about her loss and she said the worst part was losing things that could not be replaced-photos, family heirlooms and, she said and I quote, "tchochkes the kids had made."
Tchochkes? This wasn't a town in Israel or even New York. This was down south. Talk about Jewish culture having been adopted and embraced by American society.
But I can, amazingly, even top that one. Sen. John McCain recently traveled to several countries, including, of course, Israel. I say of course because of the many things Jews take for granted is how politically blessed we are in this country. And so if a presidential candidate is going to go overseas to burnish his foreign policy credentials, of course, in addition to going to Britain and France, our oldest allies, he has to stop in Israel. A tiny country, the Jewish country.
Anyway, McCain happened to be in Israel just before Purim and at one point he said that Purim is like Halloween in the United States in that kids dress up in costumes.
What was interesting, and what is one of the side effects of our nutty two year long presidential campaigns, is that that comment actually created a bit of a political dustup since the meaning and history of the holidays are, in fact, totally different.
But that's not what amazed me. What amazed me is that an MSNBC show called 'Verdict' actually devoted several minutes convening a panel of political experts to examine how big a blunder, how big a political problem it was that McCain compared Purim to Halloween.
I literally could not believe my ears hearing some of this country's top political analysts talk about Purim and whether it's like Halloween, whether he should have said it, what he meant by it, what long lasting effect it might have on his campaign, how he could have made such a mistake considering that accompanying him on his trip was none other than Joe Lieberman, and on and on. And I literally could not believe my eyes when up at the bottom of the screen for several minutes as they talked was the headline, "Purim vs. Halloween: How Big a Problem for McCain?"
How big a problem? Who the hell outside of the Jewish community has even heard of Purim, let alone knows what it's all about?
Well, maybe more than I think. I still remember my amazement last year when I drove by a tavern that linked Purim, a holiday on which Jews traditionally get drunk, with St. Patrick's Day, when the Irish are known to bend an elbow or two. The tavern cleverly enough was promoting a Purim/St. Patrick's Day Special of two drinks for the price of one.
I thought I had seen everything when I saw that. But I must admit that MSNBC news discussion of whether comparing Purim to Halloween was in the same league of political problems as Obama's Pastor Wright thing really took the cake. Or hamantaschen as the case might be.
Jews have been all over the place lately. We had that whole Eliot Spitzer prostitute thing as poor Jewish wife Silva looked on. A very powerful Jew, with a very Jewish name and yet again no Jewish cracks. And back to McCain for a second. When he made a stop in Iraq, he made a misstatement about Iran training and arming Al Qaeda, which it would never do since the Iranians are Shiites and Al Qaeda are Sunnis. And who was it who immediately sidled over beside McCain and whispered in his ear that what he meant to say was that Iran was supporting not Al Qaeda but rather Islamic militants? Why none other than Joe Lieberman, Jew with a very Jewish name.
And yet again no stereotypical snide remarks. On the contrary, I heard one political maven suggesting that maybe Lieberman should be the one running for president and another that McCain would be wise to pick Joe to be his running mate.
Jews as not to be trusted, Jews suspected as having more allegiance to their religion than to their country is another weapon that has often been used against us. Which is why I found it so amazing at how unnoted it was when just recently Kenneth Wainstein, Jew, was named White House homeland security advisor, and Michael Leiter, Jew, was named director of the National Counterterrorism Center.
Here's my point in all this. As Rev. Jeremiah Wright's racist and hateful words have shown so clearly, indeed as the words of Barack Obama, who I believe is a good man, but who called his grandmother a "typical white person," show so clearly, is that stereotypes are very deep within us all and are very hard to overcome.
And yet, Jews, who have been the victims for a very, very long time of some of history's most hateful and most destructive stereotypes, are not being subject to them, even when issues of the economy or power make it so tempting and convenient to do so.
As Jews, as Americans we should be amazed by that and so thankful for that.
Quotes highlighted by Radio IslamIn the above Jewish article the whole issue of disproportionate Jewish power in the US is - again - proven, from a leading Jewish source. Part of being a Jew is the idea that you belong to a master race, "the chosen people", with almost mythological powers and extensive networks. Part of this Jewish identity is to constantly boast about the Jews in higher places, to increase the feeling of self fulfillment of the lesser Jews, in the Jew-Jew hierarchy. Thus an article such as mr. Aaron´s.
For us - resisting the Jewish colonial state of Israel and seeking a just World not governed by complex-filled, power-crazed, racialist mobsters with their introvert minds set on being "chosen" to rule what they call the "Goyim" - and as we work against the Jew-directed desinformation campaigns, we have to spread the knowledge to all non-Jews, Christians, Moslems, and other dominations, of this Jewish takeover of the World´s last super power - the USA.
Thus we have highlighted some of the more revealing quotes in Aaron´s article, quotes we ask our readers to spread with all means possible to as wide an audience as possible.
Joseph Aaron, editor of The Chicago Jewish News, writes:
"I have always been amazed by, and have often written about, how this country is so amazingly great for Jews. In so many ways. How it has allowed us to flourish, both as Americans and as Jews.Two of nine Supreme Court justices are Jews. Though Jews make up only about 2 percent of the U.S. population, we make up 13 percent of the U.S. Senate, with senators from such non-Jewish states as Wisconsin, Minnesota and Oregon. Vanity Fair magazine's list of the 100 members of The Establishment, this country's movers and shakers, includes 51, yes 51 Jews.
I could go on and on, could talk about how big a deal is made out of Rosh Hashanah, our new year, in the media, how many specials and movies there have been about the Holocaust, how much coverage tiny Israel gets in the newspapers, how many prime time TV shows feature Jewish characters."
"As you may have heard, things have not been going so great in this area lately. There's been all kinds of talk about foreclosures and bailouts of big companies and shaky financial institutions and record gas prices and all kinds of high economic anxiety.
At the center of it all is one Ben Bernanke.
He's the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, which means basically that it's his job to make sure the economy doesn't fall apart. [...] Actually, it's Ben Shalom Bernanke.
Yep, his middle name is Shalom. Yep, Ben Bernanke is a Jew.
In fact, the very second paragraph of his life story as told on Wikipedia.com notes that his was one of the few Jewish families in Dillon, South Carolina, where he grew up. Tells us which synagogue he attended there, tells us that he learned Hebrew as a child from his grandfather, who was a professional Torah reader and Hebrew teacher.
Ben Shalom Bernanke."
"A look at Jewish history would show you that that is where the Jews usually come in. Economic times tough, people hurting and angry? Blame it on the Jews.
And the truth is it wouldn't be at all that tough to do this time. Many say the true culprit in letting the housing market get so out of control is Bernanke's predecessor as Fed chairman. Name of Alan Greenspan, Jewish boy.
And oh, and about that Bear Stearns collapse that resulted in its employees losing their pensions and life savings and many their jobs, in its shareholders losing their fortunes, guess who was the chief executive of the company under whose watch all this took place? Alan Schwartz."
"As much as I love this country, as good as I know this country has been to us, I still find it breathtakingly wonderful to see that, even when it comes to the economy, even when Jews have such a prominent role in it, even when the temptation to blame us is right there for the taking, it has not happened."
"Sen. John McCain recently traveled to several countries, including, of course, Israel. I say of course because of the many things Jews take for granted is how politically blessed we are in this country. And so if a presidential candidate is going to go overseas to burnish his foreign policy credentials, of course, in addition to going to Britain and France, our oldest allies, he has to stop in Israel. A tiny country, the Jewish country."
"Jews have been all over the place lately. We had that whole Eliot Spitzer prostitute thing as poor Jewish wife Silva looked on. A very powerful Jew, with a very Jewish name and yet again no Jewish cracks. And back to McCain for a second. When he made a stop in Iraq, he made a misstatement about Iran training and arming Al Qaeda, which it would never do since the Iranians are Shiites and Al Qaeda are Sunnis. And who was it who immediately sidled over beside McCain and whispered in his ear that what he meant to say was that Iran was supporting not Al Qaeda but rather Islamic militants? Why none other than Joe Lieberman, Jew with a very Jewish name.
And yet again no stereotypical snide remarks. On the contrary, I heard one political maven suggesting that maybe Lieberman should be the one running for president and another that McCain would be wise to pick Joe to be his running mate."
"Jews as not to be trusted, Jews suspected as having more allegiance to their religion than to their country is another weapon that has often been used against us. Which is why I found it so amazing at how unnoted it was when just recently Kenneth Wainstein, Jew, was named White House homeland security advisor, and Michael Leiter, Jew, was named director of the National Counterterrorism Center."