Jews and I

I must be a madman to have embarked on a series of posts about "Who is a Jew?" That question is probably the most widely debated one among Jews themselves and the various answers to it have on occasions led to shouting matches in the Knesset. So what makes me think I can add anything to it? I actually never did think that I was making any original contribution. All I did, as far as I can see, was boil down the Orthodox view to one sentence ("You are a Jew either because of your own religion or the religion of one of your recent forebears"). But boiling down anything theological is a peril, of course.

Anyway, I think I am going to have to put a stop to it. While I have had an excellent and enjoyable correspondence with Jewish readers about the matter, I fear that I might be boring my Gentile readers to death. So I have decided that I will cease and desist from such posts for the foreseeable future.

I have always been favourably impressed by what I read about Jews and have at times thought it would be good to be one. I am too attached to a part of my anatomy to do anything about it, however. So when my son turned 13 I asked him if he would like me to arrange a version of a bar mitzvah for him. He replied firmly that No, he wanted to remain a kid as long as possible. I understood completely. When I was his age I thought that going out and working for your living looked too hard. I would much rather be looked after by someone else. I grew out of that in due course, as has my son. Those who don't grow out of it we call Leftists.

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ELSEWHERE

A very special man: "On December 8th an F/A-18D Marine Hornet fighter jet crashed into Dong Yun Yoon's home while he was at work and killed his wife, mother –in-law and his two baby girls. The pilot of the fighter jet was able to eject and parachute to safety just before the crash. On that day, Dong Yun Yoon held a press conference. Mr. Yoon did not announce a lawsuit; he did not complain about flight patterns or military air bases or lash out at the world as many people would. Mr. Yoon prayed for the Marine pilot. Mr. Yoon said "I pray for him not to suffer for this action," "I know he's one of our treasures for our country." I don't have any hard feelings," "I know he did everything he could." Having just lost three generations of his family, Mr. Yoon, a Christian, and a devout member of the Korean United Methodist Church in San Diego found room in his heart to worry about the pilot. I wish I were a better writer. I wish I had the ability to express the impact Mr. Yoon's words had on me. In his terrible sorrow, Mr. Yoon gave us a glimpse of the light. I saw the light and I was ashamed." [See also here].

Pandering to racism in Germany: "German cops, worried that an Israeli flag in an apartment window might incite vile, racist scumbag demonstrators, solve the problem by breaking into the apartment and removing the flag. There are only two possible explanations for this. First, these German cops want to suppress expressions of support for Israel. This strikes me as a bad public relations and an offense to international human rights law. Now, I have little good to say about international "human rights" law, but Europeans claim to venerate it. Go figure. Second, the Germans have such contempt for the ability of the Muslim demonstrators to control their emotions that they do not trust them to respond non-violently even to such a benign symbol as a flag in a window. Not only are these German cops pandering to the racism of the protestors, but they themselves are racist in their obvious assumption that Muslims will resort to violence at the slightest provocation".

The race card returns: "We live in hopeful times - we are Americans after all - and we should be thinking hopeful thoughts. On the historically depressing topic of race relations, we've been in a particularly hopeful place in the wake of the last election. But if you need a gauge of exactly how anomalous Obama and his campaign were in the context of race, all you have to do is watch the chaos that now surrounds the process by which he will be replaced in the Senate. Roland Burris will be, and rightly so, the next senator from Illinois. Despite all the bluster, the law and the politics are on his side, and the Senate will eventually have to seat him. The Democratic leadership has essentially conceded as much, but from the moment Gov. Rod Blagojevich named Burris, the fog of blatant, heavy-handed racial politics was going to be the insurance policy that would guarantee Burris, Obama's seat."

Britain as a land of fear: "It seems to have taken just over 50 years for the reach of the state to become near ubiquitous. There's little any of us do now that does not involve the parasitic actions and attitudes of it; ultimately we have a malignant monkey on our backs. We have become servile in our acceptance of state actions, but recently (partly as a response to the heavy handed reaction to terrorism and its presumption of all citizens being equally guilty) the heavy fisted approach has spread further."

A new circus comes to town : "Is it too soon to talk about the failed Obama presidency just because Obama isn't president yet? That depends upon how quickly Barack Obama is able to apply the lessons he's learned from Management Secrets of the Illinois Governors. So far he's not doing very well. He has allowed America's current number one jackleg, crackpot, smut-mouth, slime-licking politician to give the Obama Senate seat to a lovable old African-American doofus whom no one has the heart to execrate. Roland Burris will be the kind of ornament to this year's Senate that the broken plastic Rudolph with its antlers missing was to last year's Christmas tree. Then Obama took Bill Richardson - one of his earliest important supporters and among the smartest, most experienced, and, certainly, most affable of Washington insiders - and put Bill at the Department of Commerce."

The problem, informally stated : "I see that our president-to-be has told George Stephanopoulos that: `Everybody's going to have to give. Everybody's going to have to have some skin in the game.' It would appear to be news to Mr. Barack Obama that `ordinary' Americans are already being f*cked to death and screwed 500 ways to Sunday, all to support the ruling class in its inordinate wealth and power. But what the hell: `everybody' is going to be screwed all over again. Not, however, the ruling class. On that point, you may be absolutely certain."

There is a new lot of postings by Chris Brand just up -- on his usual vastly "incorrect" themes of race, genes, IQ etc.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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