Renowned, talented singer-songwriter Billy Joel.is a prototype of what has happened to American Jewry’s baby boomers. Opinion.
By Howard Rotberg, INN
Vladimir Bukovsky said that “(modern left-liberalism) is an extreme mental aberration best described by the Russian saying: that it is like a dog in reverse because it barks at its own folks and wags its tail in front of a stranger.”
The Biden left-liberal administration in America is turning out to be nightmarish for both America and Israel. It hurriedly pulled out from Afghanistan leaving Afghan allies to the persecution by the Taliban. It left to the Taliban billions of dollars of up-to-date military equipment. It opened up its southern border without vetting immigrants. It flooded the money supply with printed money thus creating an inflation that will hurt most the lower and middle classes who thought that the Democratic Party was their friend.
Israel’s great ally during the Trump administration has now bullied Israel into cancelling plans for the much needed large Atarot housing development planned for haredim. It is pushing ahead to negate Israel’s sovereignty in Jerusalem by putting an American Palestinian consulate in East Jerusalem. It wants to further the Iran agreement which will allow the eventual Iranian nuclear weapons Iran has pledged to use against the Jewish state.
Vice-president Kamala Harris at George Mason University told a female Muslim student who complained about the U.S. House of Representatives’ overwhelming approval of $1 billion to replenish Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile system, depleted during the Hamas massive rocket attack on Israeli cities: “Your voice, your perspective, your experience, your truth should not be suppressed.”
And we all know what that “perspective” is – Jews in Israel should be killed or deported so that the so-called “Palestinians can replace it with an Islamist state including the land “from the river to the sea”; that is, all of pre-1967 Israel. That perspective also supports “cancel culture” in universities and intersectionality” now means that Islamist students and their Leftist and Marxist allies hate Israel and can articulate hate and inducement to violence.
Kamala Harris is not concerned.
But for the most part, neither are American and Canadian Jews: approximately 70% of American Jews (that is, those who identify as Jews) voted for Biden/Harris as opposed to Donald Trump, the most pro-Israel president in American history and one whose Abraham Accords and pro-Sunni policy and anti-Iranian Shi’ite policy had the potential to change the Middle East in a very positive way.
Moreover, the Trumpophobic obsession of American Jews is mirrored in the most powerful and influential Jews within the administration, who are quite opposed to Trump’s Israel policy, and often quite supportive of anti-Israel groups like JStreet, Jewish Voices for Peace, the BDS movement, etc.
America keeps the door open to Muslim immigrants, and pays little attention that a quarter will be hard-core Islamists, believing in Sharia Law and the World-wide caliphate, and another half will be allright with Islamists and their leftist allies taking power in America.
What we have in the “Squad” are two antisemitic, anti-Israel Islamist women, one of “Palestinian” heritage and one of Somalian background.
Too many Jews tolerate this as part of the culturally relative multiculturalism, which submits to Islamist values, as I have pointed out in my book, The Ideological Path to Submission… and what we can do about it.
There are Jews who go so far as to link current Islamophobia (as alleged) with the genocide of the Holocaust.
Most Holocaust remembrance committees are led by leftist Jews who make sure that they do not so much as mention the word “Israel” because they have submitted to the Islamist and Leftist view that Israel is the problem child of Western liberalism.
How did we get to this place, where most of the American Jews who vote with Israel in mind are the minority who are Orthodox?
It is increasingly clear that for Jews in the Academy or in Democratic Party politics Israel means little.
One answer is to examine the origins of the baby boomer ideology, among Diaspora Jews, born right after World War II, which has resulted in massive intermarriage and failure to produce Jewish children and grandchildren in addition to moral confusion about Israel.
The origins of this baby boomer ideology can be seen in the history of American Jewry, including its failure to advocate for the Six Million, and the arrogance of German Jews within the Jewish community of 19th century America as it changed to lower class more religious Polish and Russian/Ukrainian Jews.
By the 1950s there were almost no Holocaust memorials and not even any scholarly books on the Shoah – they would appear only in the 1960s. The entire orientation of mainstream Jewry was towards establishing businesses, becoming professionals and erecting beautiful Conservative or Reform temples in sprawling subdivisions that made walking to Synagogue impossible; the Orthodox were seen as marginal. The fact that the only significant protest march in America during the Shoah was done by a group of mostly older Orthodox Rabbis showed that the mainstream was preoccupied with fitting in or assimilating to modern American culture.
By the late 1960s and early 1970s, the children of Holocaust survivors and the grandchildren of the massive immigration from Eastern Europe and Russia in the early 20th century, were well ensconced in higher education, the professions, small and large business, entertainment and politics.
And so the crisis in American culture brought on by the draft for the Vietnam War, matters of race, materialism, and the attraction of the “hippie” culture, was particularly germane in the Jewish community. (Oxford defines “hippie” as “(especially in the 1960s) a person of unconventional appearance, typically having long hair, associated with a subculture involving a rejection of conventional values and the taking of hallucinogenic drugs.)
Many Jews became hippies and some as we shall see with our discussion on the work of Billy Joel, were willing to identify as “lunatics.”
Political activists like Jerry Rubin and Abby Hoffman were important figures in the crisis of political culture as the baby boomers, even sons and daughters of the new Jewish upper middle class, adopted a radical perspective, despite their social and economic status.
There were important feminists like Phyllis Chesler, comedians like the Marx Brothers, Jack Benny (Benjamin Kubelsky), movie stars. like Kirk Douglas ( Issur Danielovitch) to name a few. There were dozens of important scientists and physicians – Albert Einstein, Robert Oppenheimer, Jonas Salk, to name but a few. There were the best songwriters from Irving Berlin and George Gershwin to Bob Dylan (Robert Zimmerman) and Leonard Cohen. There were Jewish artists such as Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, Barbara Streisand, and Carol King (Klein). Novelists would include Philip Roth, Saul Bellow, Bernard Malamud, Herman Wouk, Leon Uris, Chaim Potok, E.L. Doctorow and many others.
The one constant among the entertainers, movie stars, writers, singers and songwriters, is that the more popular they became, the less likely it was that they would have Jewish children or grandchildren.
The Reform acceptance of patrilineal Judaism meant that many supposed Jews are not halakhic Jews which is just one of the many issues that divide the American Jewish community.
To explain my view of American Jewry and how Israeli Jewry has clearly surpassed American Jewry to become the most important Jewish community in the world, I wish to concentrate on one born-Jewish entertainer of great renown and talent – singer songwriter Billy Joel.
In an article by Mesfin Fekadu on the 29th of April, 2014 in Times Of Israel, it is stated that while he was born Jewish, he appears to have attended a Catholic church and may have been baptized. With that in mind let us look at the lyrics of two of his best known songs to see what we can learn:
Only the Good Die Young
Come out Virginia, don’t let ’em wait
You Catholic girls start much too late
Aw but sooner or later it comes down to fate
Oh I might as well be the one
Well, they showed you a statue, told you to pray
They built you a temple and locked you away
Aw, but they never told you the price that you pay
For things that you might have done
Only the good die young
That’s what I said
Only the good die young
Only the good die young
You might have heard I run with a dangerous crowd
We ain’t too pretty we ain’t too proud
We might be laughing a bit too loud
Aw but that never hurt no one
So come on Virginia show me a sign
Send up a signal and I’ll throw you the line
The stained-glass curtain you’re hiding behind
Never let’s in the sun
Darlin’ only the good die young
Woah
I tell ya
Only the good die young
Only the good die young
You got a nice white dress and a party on your confirmation
You got a brand new soul
Mmm, and a cross of gold
But Virginia they didn’t give you quite enough information
You didn’t count on me
When you were counting on your rosary
(Oh woah woah)
They say there’s a heaven for those who will wait
Some say it’s better but I say it ain’t
I’d rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints
The sinners are much more fun
You know that only the good die young
I tell ya
Only the good die young
Only the good die young
Well your mother told you all that I could give you was a reputation
Aw she never cared for me
But did she ever say a prayer for me? oh woah woah
It is hard to think of a less Jewish song than this. It is a plea to Virginia, a Catholic girl to not wait until marriage to have sexual relations with the narrator-singer The narrator boasts that he’d rather “laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints”
In the next song, Joel boasts that he is a “lunatic”: The young woman has waited so long for someone to “satisfy” her, and Joel says she might be looking for a lunatic and he is the one. She “might enjoy some madness for a while”. Then he blames the young woman for his madness.
You May Be Right
“It just might be a lunatic you’re looking for”
Friday night I crashed your party
Saturday I said, “I’m sorry”
Sunday came and trashed me out again
I was only having fun
Wasn’t hurting anyone
And we all enjoyed the weekend for a change
I’ve been stranded in the combat zone
I walked through Bedford Stuy alone
Even rode my motorcycle in the rain
And you told me not to drive
But I made it home alive
So you said that only proves that I’m insane
You may be right
I may be crazy
Oh, but it just may be a lunatic you’re looking for
Turn out the light
Don’t try to save me
You may be wrong for all I know
But you may be right
Well, remember how I found you there
Alone in your electric chair
I told you dirty jokes until you smiled
You were lonely for a man
I said, “Take me as I am”
‘Cause you might enjoy some madness for a while
Now think of all the years you tried to
Find someone to satisfy you
I might be as crazy as you say
If I’m crazy then it’s true
That it’s all because of you
And you wouldn’t want me any other way
You may be right
I may be crazy
Oh, but it just may be a lunatic you’re looking for
It’s too late to fight
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It’s too late to change me
You may be wrong for all I know
But you may be right
And so, Joel, the singer, sees himself as a sinner and even a lunatic. He therefore joins a large number of Jewish writers who are both anti-establishment and anti-Jewish values. It seems that he has never been political but in late 2017, according to Gabe Friedman writing in Times Of Israel, Joel came out on stage for a performance wearing a Shoah-like yellow magen david sewed onto his jacket.
Was this a protest against antisemitism or against the left’s obsessive hatred of Israel? In fact, writes Friedman, he donned the Holocaust-style patch in protest of something said by President Donald Trump:
Joel says he donned the Holocaust-style patch in protest of US president’s statement about the protest and counter-protest regarding the taking down of a statue to honor Confederate General Robert E. Lee, in Charlottesville North Carolina. There were protestors against the statue, protestors for the statue, and unfortunately the matter attracted some white supremacists, who marched with the slogan “Unite the Right”.
Unfortunately, Trump who was not at the protest, was not really aware of how many white supremacists had flocked to this event. Trump suggested that in view of the fact that there were non-violent protests for and against the statue, that there were “very fine people on both sides”, likely not understanding that the pro-statue people were joined by neo-Nazis and white supremacists. .”
Trumpophobes made all sorts of allegations that Trump’s words showed an unwillingness to speak out against Nazis, which was incorrect. He subsequently sought to make his position clear by stating: “Racism is evil, and those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans.”
But to the political enemies of Trump there was nothing he could say to clarify what they saw as a moral equivalence in the “both sides” remark, even though he clarified it.
And so Billy Joel, no expert on politics who had never spoken out on any Jewish issues or Israel issues became “enraged” and told people that some of his family members had been killed by the Nazis and that he interpreted Trump’s comments to mean that he thought Nazis are good people.
Joel’s parents had escaped Germany and got into Cuba before moving to the U.S. He did have an uncle and cousins who were on board the infamous ship, the St. Louis which was not permitted during the Shoah to land in America and went back to Germany where all its passengers were murdered by the Nazis. It was a Democratic Party president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, who turned them back, but most Jews don’t seem to care. They misconstrue the lesson of the St. Louis (which should be that we need our own boats and our own country with the best military) and instead now think that their efforts should concentrate on allowing into the country Islamist immigrants whom they now equate with Jewish immigrants.
Gabe Friedman in his article refers to Joel’s “simple, straight-forward quietly powerful act of pinning a yellow Star of David above his heart on his dark suit and (his) thought of the decades of family and global history behind it.” He imagines that there were “millions of Jews and non-Jews for whom Billy Joel’s voice rang out clear and true, without having to sing one note on that August night in New York.”
I don’t see it that way. I think that Joel by his use of the Holocaust yellow Magen David does not seek so much to protest antisemitism, as Trump cannot be called an antisemite and in fact has an Orthodox Jewish daughter and grandchildren. What is being done is an appropriation of Holocaust imagery for a political purpose – the purpose was to defeat Donald Trump. And Joel by helping to defeat Donald Trump has helped to jeopardize the security of the Jewish people in our homeland, Israel.
American Jews who think that the most pro-Israel president in history is somehow a Nazi also think that the party of Omar and Tlaib and Emerson and the BLM are our friends. Baby boomers who were proud to be “hip” lunatics raised their children to be “woke” and more interested in giving power to leftists, black power advocates, and Islamists than supporting the interests of the Jewish people.
“Woke” can be defined as “alert to injustice in society, especially anti-black racism”. But it has grown to include proponents of cancel culture, critical race theory and cultural and moral relativism. But the one racism that it does not concern itself with is the obsessive double standard used against the homeland of the Jewish people, Israel and its Zionist supporters.
Are the Jewish people more threatened from Trump than Biden and his Islamist colleagues in the “Squad”?
Are we more threatened by Republicans and moderate conservatives or violent antisemitic Black Lives Matter thugs whose riots left 2,000 police officers injured and caused more than $1 billion in damages? A summer of BLM destruction, and violence towards citizens and police, seems to point to the real threats to America and its Jews.
Billy Joel, the proud lunatic, has joined an undue portion of American Jews who are reducing the number of Jews in America by not having and properly educating, halakhically Jewish children. He is likely unaware and little interested in the threat of a Second Shoah coming from Iran and the Arab nations and supported by hard leftists. His uncouth songs and his misuse of Holocaust imagery are symbols of the sad fate of secular American Jews.
Simon Rocker, writing in the Jewish Chronicle(https://www.thejc.
The American Jewish baby boomers, given an unprecedented amount of material goods and education ran away from the values of our people and embraced the very leftists and Islamists who pose a threat to the Jewish people. The baby boomers wanted to be “hip” and their children want to be “woke”; few even talk about being a “mensch”.
The story of Billy Joel warns us that a Jew should strive to be a mensch, not a lunatic barking at our own people and our friends.
Howard Rotberg has written four books on ideologies and political culture, including the novel about Israel during the Second Intifada, entitled The Second Catastrophe: A Novel About a Book and its Author, and Tolerism: The Ideology Revealed, and The Ideological Path to Submission … and what we can do about it, all available from Amazon..
Howard’s general point that American Jews have distnced themselves from both Israel and Judaism is absolutely on target. But Billy Joel is definitely not a prime example of this process. Whew it comes to religion and politics, Joel is pretty much a cipher.
As far as I know, and correct me if I am wrong, Joel has not publicly denounced Israel, Judaism or even Orthodox Judaism. But many other prominent American Jews have attacked these favorite targets of antisemites, and in this way distanced themselves, or tried to distance themselves from their Jewish roots. Two of the most prominent among these American Jews are the famous (or infamous) novelist Philip Roth, a Nobel Prize winner, and the leftist idol Noam Chomsky. Quotations from these two non-gentlemen would be a more effective way of documenting the defection of so many American Jews from their Jewish roots than quoting Billy Joel’s puerile, infantile lyrics. These lyrics are of very low artistic quality and slightly obscene, like the lyrics of most American popular songs, at least since the 1960s. But they are not antisemitic.They don’t even mention Jews.
Despite having made an anti-Trump statement at a concert in Israel, Joel was not especially prominent in the hate-Trump movement either. Howard could have quoted hundreds of American Jews from the entertainment community who were more active Trump-haters than Joel. Barbara Streisand and Carl Reiner, to mention just two of these. Quotes from a recent anti-Trump Streisand song would have been more appropriate to illustrate Howard’s excellent points than Joel’s merely tasteless and obscene lyrics.
He didn’t simply clarify it later, in that very same speech, his complete statement was: “There are good people on both sides, now I’m not talking about the white supremacists and neo-nazis, who should be condemned totally”. THAT WAS HIS COMPLETE STATEMENT, which in its entirety always gets conveniently left out. So even people defending Trump, fail to make this point or don’t know the complete statement.
Yes, way back when I first heard Billy Joel, when The Stranger was released, I thought he was Italian. He grew up in an Italian neighborhood. Anyway, Joel is a great talent, but an annoying, stereotypical New York Jewish liberal. A few years back Daniel Greenfield wrote of the demise of the NY Jewish liberal being replaced by the Orthodox.
Back in the day, I and many other people assumed he was Italian, because of so many references to Italian-American culture in his songs. This perception changed much later. Most likely, he preferred to pass, like Bernie Sanders tried to pass as Polish, until being Jewish was useful.
Billy Joel (a brilliant songwriter and artist, by the way), reminds me of many of the Reform boys I knew growing up.