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The Atlantic’s Franklin Foer: Jewish Trump Voters Must Be Shunned
As a Jew who usually finds it hard to be offended by idiotic, emoting leftists spewing irrational assertions, this may be one of the vilest, most deranged and dangerous things I have read. The Atlantic’s columnist Franklin Foer (former editor of The New Republic) essentially casts blame for the Pittsburgh horror on Conservative Jews.
In Donald Trump’s abhorrence for globalism and in his inability to smack down David Duke, it was easy to hear the ominous chords of history, to see how he was activating dormant hatreds with his conspiratorial tropes.
This is a President that fulfilled his promise to move the American Embassy to Israel’s capital, Jeruselum. This is a President that has reversed Obama’s capitulation on the Iranian regime who’s mullahs refuse to accept Israel as a legitimate nation and continually call for Jews to be pushed out to sea. This is a President who has a Jewish daughter and son-in-law and grandchildren. A man who prayed at the Western Wall, the holiest Jewish spot on earth.
Of course, this was not every corner of the Jewish community. After the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, Gary Cohn couldn’t bring himself to resign from his job. After Squirrel Hill, Jared Kushner and Sheldon Adelson will likely stand their ground.
To equate white supremacists and their horrific, hateful action to President Trump’s words is the act of desperate politicos who will use their own warped perception as proof of what is in Trump’s heart. We don’t just see this in the formerly thoughtful pages of The Atlantic, but across much of the mainstream media where talking-heads have become cheerleaders against 50 percent of their own country.
Leftists already decided in 2015 this President was a racist, homophobic anti-semite. No matter how many times Trump condemns hate, no matter how many ways Trump said he has nothing to do with lunatics like David Duke or believes in any of their rhetoric, the Left will perpetuate their false narrative.
Up until this paragraph, Foer was repeating irresponsible Leftist talking points which most on the right barely even register anymore.
Until this:
Any strategy for enhancing the security of American Jewry should involve shunning Trump’s Jewish enablers. Their money should be refused, their presence in synagogues not welcome. They have placed their community in danger.
What Foer is saying is that Jews must now be held to a litmus test: Vote for this President and you shall be cast out of our Jewish community.
Foer has determined himself, and those he agrees with, as the arbiters of who can remain a practicing Jew in good standing permitted to enter our houses of worship.
This is contemptuous and abhorrent. It’s not what Judaism believes, neither religiously and culturally.
Franklin Foer has taken the horror of Squirrel Hill (a synagogue only a few miles from the synagogue where I was married in 1997) and used that to confirm his worldview; That this anti-globalist has awakened and radicalized anti-semites and others intent on committing deranged actions. That the blood of Squirrel Hill is on this President’s hands.
Cowardly keyboard warriors like Foer are far more dangerous to Judaism than what we just witnessed in Pittsburgh. The heinous acts of the killer are now being used against other Jews who support the duly elected leader Foer and his like-minded thinkers hate.
This line of thinking is not dissimilar to collaborating with the Nazis in WW2 if Foer disagreed with the Jewish leader of his own ghetto.
Published in General
Welcome to my world. Where hatred so vile the air is tainted is absolutely fine, as long as the hatred is being spewed by people on the Left.
Because no one on the Left ever really hates anyone or anything, do they? They simply shun and shun and defile the name of anyone who offers up even a very weak, very small criticism of the Left. Or a very small bit of praise for those on the Center.
Disgusting. He should be ashamed. Since when did G-d decide that this hideous man could speak on His behalf? I’d love to know if he practices any kind of Judaism, except the kind that he feels he’s justified in judging others. If I put any value on his words, he’d be an embarrassment; in this case, he’s just a Jewish hypocrite.
Put no value on his words or for much of the Left’s echo chamber and even some conservatives. Pick and choose where your valuable time should be invested.
But Foers’ way of thinking, which I would assume was always beneath the service of some extreme left-wing Jews, especially in the Reform movement, is now transparent. The man and his like-minded thinkers hate conservative Jews. This is a newer form of anti-semitism, possibly darker as it has entwined with political ideology.
Jews represent only 2% of the population. We are already diluting ourselves into assimilation, mixed marriages where fewer are practicing religious and cultural traditions and are not teaching our children from where we came. Foer only furthers this divide.
It would be really nice if globalism simply meant increased trade. That is not the only definition, and that is not the only thing that is going on in reality. Globalism means a loss of sovereignty and regressive governance. That is another definition and that is definitely going on.
I hardly know what to even say about this. Trump is really mean to the media and the cultural Marxists. Beyond that, he constantly has a uniting message. I am satisfied.
I think Trump maybe one of the most clearly supportive of Israel and Jewish people in active politics today. He moved the Embassy, he’s vocal and unequivocal in statements on Jewish matters. I think its almost the only issue that Trump has, where he enjoys a plurality of support. He’s not at all divisive on this issue.
It boggles the imagination that this magazine would fire Kevin Williamson over his “troublesome” podcasts, but then in less than a year, turn out this crap?
How is this surprising? Right and wrong have been inverted – common sense thrown out with the bath water – he is a talking head that no longer thinks logically –
Foer’s comments are indeed vile: however, there are quite a few others just as bad or even worse. I collected some of them here: The Two Minutes Hate is Being Indefinitely Extended.
After Obama’s treatment of Israel, it’s incomprehensible to me that this man and other American Jews don’t see that the Democrat Party is the new home of anti-Semitism.
Liberals always bray about being so accepting of other viewpoints, but are shocked to learn that there are any.
Leftism in much our media has become a parody of itself, thus why ratings are down across most publications. But this guy and similar cohorts are now playing with fire.
Thanks for the link David. There was a time, probably not that long ago, when these people would have been called out by their own. Instead, this is what passes as “news”, they sell this garbage to their viewers and readers who accept it at face value.
FIFY.
It always was. Too bad so many of my fellow tribe are blinded to it.
There’s a very interesting passage in Hendrik Willem Van Loon’s 1921 book, The Story of Mankind:
Unfortunately in the year 1914 the whole world was one large international workshop. A strike in the Argentine was apt to cause suffering in Berlin. A raise in the price of certain raw materials in London might spell disaster to tens of thousands of long-suffering Chinese coolies who had never even heard of the existence of the big city on the Thames. The invention of some obscure Privat-Dozent in a third-rate German university would often force dozens of Chilean banks to close their doors, while bad management on the part of an old commercial house in Gothenburg might deprive hundreds of little boys and girls in Australia of a chance to go to college.
This was a bit of an overstatement for 1914, but is much more true today, driven by technology (especially container freight and the Internet) and the full admission of China to the trading community. The result is that many people feel that their well-being is not only out of their own control but out of the control of their political leaders I think this has a lot to do with the pushback against “globalization.”
The (legitimate) fears about the submission of American legal standard to those of some “global” consensus is also a concern to many.
I suspect synagogues will start hiring armed security guards to keep an eye on people trying to come in and worship . . .
“OK, so you say you keep Kosher and read the Torah daily but let’s get down to the important issues. Do you hate Trump? I’m not talking kind of dislike or think he’s a little rude, but do you truly hate him like a good Jew should?”
Foer should take a look at Trump’s approval ratings in Israel, as compared to Obama’s.
The US government and the Federal Reserve are doing every single thing wrong with respect to the loss of jobs and the natural deflation from increased trade and improvements in technology. The whole West is. It’s terrible. I’m not talking about protectionism or anything like that, either. There are some good videos about it on Real Vision.
I was also referencing having governments shove multiculturalism and open borders Down everyone’s throats. Anything that has to do with centralized governance is dysfunctional now. The EU and the EMU are the worst.
Foer’s anger at conservative Jews here is fueled by his frustration that this entire week was supposed to be about Cesar Sayoc, the either fake-or-badly-made bombs he sent to Democratic politicians and other Trump opponents and the climate of hate supposedly created by Trump’s rhetoric that incident created. It was not supposed to be about Jew-hating and Trump-hating Robert Bowers slaughtering 11 people in a Pittsburgh synagogue.
It really is a case of narrative interruptus for Foer and others on the left here — from the moment Sayoc’s van with all the Trump stickers showed up on camera this past Friday morning, they knew they had the talking points they needed to erase any Kavanaugh Effect in the Nov. 6 voting and possibly revive their hopes of a Blue Wave. You can’t do that when everyone’s stopped talking about an incident where nobody died and are now focused on one were 11 people were killed by a guy who posted online that he hates Trump, hates his Jewish daughter and son-in-law, never voted for him and never has worn a MAGA hat.
They don’t want to abandon the script they had written in their heads about Cesar Sayoc, and are trying to somehow spin it that Sayoc and Bowers had the same triggering demon, even if they have to somehow claim the Anti-Semite who said he hates Trump was a Trump supporter. And the narrative doesn’t work if there are Jews out there (including the rabbi of the Living Tree Synagogue) not blaming Trump for the murders. So to maintain the story he wants to tell, Chief Rabbi Foer threatens to write any Jews who don’t fall in line with the narrative out of their own religion.
Shunning, breaking financially, then tossing into the void is a short step to a gulag.
After everyone Mr. Foer hated was tossed in, his friends on the left would toss him in, next.
Useful fool is he.
The remarks of Foer are so stupid I’ve hesitated to waste my time commenting. It’s actually pretty simple. It is a bizarre chain of logic that demands tossing into the darkness supporters of Donald Trump because of the actions of an opponent of Trump’s, someone who believes Trump is controlled by Jews and who was appalled by Trump’s remarks condemning white nationalists after Charlottesville.
I have been a member of a Temple for most of my adult life. Over the past 15 years or so politics overtly or through innuendo constantly invades the sermons. I also know, as I sit in the worship hall surrounded by fellow Jews, that most of them would object vociferously to my political beliefs. I have come to believe when it comes to anti semitism, Jews can be their own worst enemy.
We now have on full display what I call “vicarious terrorism.” Traditional terrorists cause some horrible tragedy, and use it to promote their political agenda. Vicarious terrorists wait for someone else to cause a horrible tragedy, and then use it to promote their political agenda. To paraphrase Rahm Emmanuel, never let a good tragedy go to waste. Vicarious terrorism is not illegal like traditional terrorism, but it is almost as despicable.
Dennis Prager is talking about this right now. He’s not happy. LOL
Dave, agreed. Good post.
This is, of course, not the first time the Jews have been used as scapegoats to further a political agenda. They are very versatile villains, for those whose platforms can not stand unless they are built, crushingly, upon the backs of others.
Well put. Watch out for this one: One of the Tree of Life murderers bêtes noir was HIAS. (Stacy McCain does a good job on this here.)
Wikipedia:
That’s one way to put it. The federal government pays nine primary national contractors to resettle refugees and asylees. HIAS is one of them. Immigrants are its lifeline to federal funding, and HIAS now advocates for open borders. And supports the “caravan.”
The way the Center for Immigration Studies puts it in Heisting HIAS: The Deracination of a Communal Organization:
Wait for it. Disliking “open borders” is about to become endorsing violent antisemitism.
The Commentary podcast was saying that HIAS had fulfilled everything they could do for Jews so they switched to being general purpose. I know some of these organizations are really notorious for thinking more about their economic interest than anything else.
As ADL and SPLC.
I think there is a Minnesota Lutheran refugee organization like that. It’s big money and they like their careers. So we have a pile of people from a notorious country, here.
There are nine “Voluntary Agencies” or “Volags” which contract with the State Department and HHS to resettle refugees. It is indeed big money, and it’s worth noting that when the government and its rent seekers call a resettled refugee “self sufficient” they include people getting (as of 2011)
Relevant recent work by the Center for Immigration Studies’ Nayla Rush includes:
‘Private’ Refugee Resettlement Agencies Mostly Funded by the Government
Refugee Resettlement – Lifeline or Foreign Policy Tool?
Hank, I am not the most religious Jew, far from it. But I grew up in a conservative Jewish household. No matter what we were doing, everyone must be home for Shabbat dinner. We kept kosher. It was drilled into me to marry a Jewish girl. I am one of the few remaining non-orthodox Jews I know that fasts without food and drink each Yom Kippur. We are finalizing plans for my youngest sons bar mitzvah.
The pain for me in all of this, besides the horror itself, is how so many in the Jewish community have politicized this. I would expect this filth from Leftists, some we have seen on MSM. But this level of vitriol from within the Jewish Community against the 30% of Jews who are Conservative is a betrayal.
The Jewish Left is scared. 10 Years ago 70% of the Jewish community were Democrats. Now it’s 60%.
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by those who put politics above religion when they already replaced their religion with politics.
Foer is very naive if he takes Bowers’s words at face value. Bowers is one of those people who would have signed-up for the SS to murder Jews in Nazi Germany. Had Bowers lived in Germany in the 1930s, he would have had a government job killing Jews. He’s an anti-Semite with a genocidal ideology. Plain and simple. Bowers may have hated the synagogue’s work with HIAS, but it’s a distraction if you think that’s what set him off. Bowers is a Nazi. What I’m saying is this: forget HIAS. HIAS a pretext. Bowers is a Nazi.
It’s Foer’s attachment to what the mass murderer misleadingly wrote on Facebook that leads him to cheaply point the finger at Jews who happen to disagree with his policy preferences on the matter of immigration, and to suggest that the President, who intends to secure the border in order to protect the United States and to fulfill his Constitutional oath to do the same, is somehow to blame for “activating [Bowers’s] dormant hatreds.”
How cheap moral superiority is these days.