by Barney Breen-Portnoy, ALGEMEINER
A visiting Israeli author painted a bleak picture of non-Orthodox Jewish life in the US during a New York City book signing hosted by The Algemeiner last month.
Tuvia Tenenbom — whose newest book is titled The Lies They Tell, which details a trip he took across America — told the crowd at the Center for Jewish History, “In state after state, temple after temple, what I saw and what I witnessed was a nightmare. You see rabbis, or so-called rabbis, leaders, supposed leaders, standing at a podium and all they can tell to their listeners is that Israel is an apartheid state and that Judaism is racism. That’s what they preach.”
Later, he added, “When you see some anti-Jewish thing, if you dig deep and put a magnifying lens to see who’s behind it, over and over and over you find a Jew, and that’s frightening.”
Tuvia points out that if you look with a microscope at anti-semitic movements, there’s often a Jew involved. Sometimes big things start with little, seemingly inconsequential things and snowball imperceptibly out of control. How often do we open the door for our enemies to walk through. There’s an article in today’s Jpost about a new documentary about Holocaust comedy, asking if it’s acceptable.
http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Culture/Is-Holocaust-comedy-taboo-488121
I would answer that Charlie Chaplin’s “Great Dictator” and Mel Brooks’ “The Producers” are terrific, and even Hogan’s Heros, because they ridicule and in Mel Brooks’ words, “deflate” them. Radical (read, real) Muslims get murderously violent — following Mohammad’s example — when Mohammad or Islam is ridiculed and they are trying to have that outlawed as some sort of make believe category of racism, “islamofauxbia.” (Actually, if we had the right policies and people in place, there would be a systematic policy of mockery to root out the Jihadists pretending to be moderates so they can be deported, interned, or liquidated. Anyone who gets mad is “it.” Last I heard, nobody was threatened over the hit Broadway show, “The Book of Mormon” and God knows how we put up and shut up (or even join in the fun.)
But, when it trivializes the Shoah, it opens the door to Holocaust denial or open anti-semitism, even renewed calls to genocide.
Thinking back, the earliest example of comedy I can think of trivializing the Holocaust by using the term “Nazi” in a generic way to just mean garden-variety bully was Jerry Seinfeld’s “Soup Nazi” in the ’90s. I find myself wondering if he unwittingly opened a door for openly Nazi comedians like Diedonne? It took a Republican — Nixon — to end the cold war with China, it took a Democrat, Bill Clinton, to “reform” welfare, did it take a Jew, “Seinfeld” to end the taboo on trivializing and universalizing the meaning of the word, “Nazi?” (I wonder if that’s why my father, a survivor and Jewish resistance leader during the siege of Budapest who loved Mel Brooks and “The Producers”, both the movie and the Broadway show, said he hated Seinfeld — I never asked why, I just assumed it was because it glorified slackers, but could it have been this?) Look at the dates.
“Who is Dieudonne, the French comedian on trial for condoning the Charlie Hebdo attacks?”
“..The trouble started in the early 2000s when his comedy took a sharp nose-dive into anti-Semitism…”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/11387219/Who-is-Dieudonne-the-French-comedian-on-trial-for-condoning-the-Charlie-Hebdo-attacks.html
“…Seinfeld is an American sitcom that originally ran for nine seasons on NBC, from 1989 to 1998…”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seinfeld
p.s.
This editing feature needs work, it keeps undoing my corrections and jumping the cursor back, everything has to be input 5 or 6 times before it takes.
Please do regurgitate any “facts” that support your liberal delusions about trump.
@ oldjerry:
@ Sebastien Zorn:
Incidentally, I give Pipes review of Peters a mixed review. He also says she is tendentious on the one hand. On the other, he unduly praises her as the first to document this. Shmuel Katz was earlier and he, in turn, draws on even earlier works. Katz is actually more detailed, covering the same territory, though both are must reads:
Battleground: Fact & Fantasy in Palestine Paperback – September 1, 2002
by Samuel Katz (Author)
https://www.amazon.com/Battleground-Fantasy-Palestine-Samuel-Katz/dp/0929093135
I see it can be read for free with a Kindle Unlimited Subscription.
Ah, here is a pdf version:
http://www.shmuelkatz.com/articles/battlegroundfactandfantasyinpalestine.pdf
and
“A selection of articles, reprinted by permission, by Middle East writer Samuel Katz. During British Mandate rule, he was a member of the high command of the Irgun Zvai Leumi under the leadership of Menachem Begin. Katz was elected a member of the first Knesset of Israel, and, after the Six Day War, he became one of the leaders of the Land of Israel movement. After the victory of the Likud party in the 1977 election, Samuel Katz joined the new government as adviser to Prime Minister Begin. He has since served as a columnist of Maariv and the Jerusalem Post.”
http://www.eretzyisroel.org/~samuel/
“Shmuel “Mooki” Katz (Hebrew: ????? “????” ???? 9 December 1914 – 9 May 2008[1]) was an Israeli writer, historian and journalist.[2] Prior to the formation of the State of Israel, he was a Zionist activist and member of the Irgun High Command. He was a member of the first Knesset and is also known for his biography of Jewish leader Ze’ev Jabotinsky.[3]
Contents [hide]
1 Biography
2 Political career
3 Literary career
3.1 Published works
3.1.1 Books
3.1.2 Translations
4 References
5 External links
Biography[edit]
Katz was born in Johannesburg, South Africa. His parents were Alexander and Luba Katz.[4] In 1930 he joined the Betar movement. In 1936, Katz immigrated to Mandatory Palestine as the secretary of Michael Haskel, the South African honorary consul.[5] Soon after his arrival, he joined the Irgun. In 1939, he was sent to London by Ze’ev Jabotinsky to speak on issues concerning Palestine. While there he founded the revisionist publication “The Jewish Standard” and was its editor, 1939–1941, and in 1945.[6]
In 1946 Katz returned to Mandatory Palestine and joined the HQ of the Irgun where he was active in the aspect of foreign relations. He was one of the seven members of the high command of the Irgun,[7] as well as a spokesman of the organization.[8][9] Katz also served as Irgun commander in Jerusalem during the War of Independence.[10] Menachem Begin writes in “The Revolt” that Katz “was the officer responsible for Jerusalem until the dissolution of the military regiments of the Irgun Zvai Leumi.”[11]
Political career[edit]
Katz was one of the founders of the Herut political party and served as one of its members in the First Knesset. In 1951 he left politics and managed the Karni book publishing firm. He was co-founder of the Movement for Greater Israel in 1967, and in 1971 he helped to create Americans for a Safe Israel.
In 1977 Katz became “Adviser to the Prime Minister for Information Abroad” to Menachem Begin. He accompanied Begin on two trips to Washington, D.C. and was asked to explain some points to President Jimmy Carter.[12] He quit this task on January 5, 1978 because of differences with the cabinet over peace proposals[13] with Egypt.[14] Katz was then active with the Tehiya party for some years and later with Herut – The National Movement after it split away from the ruling Likud.[15]
Literary career[edit]
Katz’s Battleground: Fact and Fantasy in Palestine describes the roots of the Arab–Israeli conflict and attempts to refute anti-Zionist myths and Arab propaganda. Katz is the author of a two-volume biography of Jabotinsky entitled Lone Wolf, A Biography of Vladimir (Ze’ev) Jabotinsky.[3] In addition, he published a regular column for many years in The Jerusalem Post.[16]”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shmuel_Katz_(politician)
If you wanted me to recommend just one author. It would be him.
@ Yaakov:
True enough, but as he mentions in one of the interviews I enclosed a link to in comment 6, he has a number of degrees and half degrees including one in Mathematics, he actually is a statistics expert. He points out that, as with Pew, the most reliable of the pollsters, his findings are a fairly reliable indicator precisely because they are random; these are representative samples out of thousands taken randomly wandering in all directions, and he went to almost 30 states, 26 I think. He did not find what he wanted to find (as with Joan Peters who started out pro Palestinian when she started her classic, “From Time immemorial.” The liberal pundits claimed she was “discredited” because she was “tendentious.” Great word that, in’t it? it means you have an unapproved ax to grind. )
Here’s the impressive bio of this modest man:
http://jewishtheater.org/Jewish%20Theater/Tuvia%20Tenenbom.htm
Excerpt:
“Tuvia Tenenbom, the author of three Spiegel best sellers, is a journalist, dramatist, and the founder of the Jewish Theater of New York. Tuvia studied for his doctorate in English literature at St. John’s University, earned his MFA in Playwriting at CUNY-Brooklyn, BS in mathematics and computer science at Touro, and finished his rabbinical studies in Jerusalem. He also studied Christianity and Islam in Israel and New York as well as journalism, acting, theater, and finance (at NYU).
In 2003 Germany’s presigious newspaper Die Zeit named Tuvia Tenenbom and Prof. Harold Bloom “the best minds” in America.
Tuvia was named “founder of a new form of Jewish theater” by the French Le Monde,…”
@ Sue Roberts:
xx
I’m deeply sorry to say that YOU, if you are a Jew, are exactly the kind of Jew Tuvia T. is talking about and has so often witnessed. He is a particularly truthful person, as we all have good reason to know.
AANNND….even without his present testimony, it has been very visible to nearly all of us for years, and years, that the American Jew is a Democrat FIRST, and American SECOND, and a JEW…. maybe or maybe not, but if he is, it’s very distant 10th on his list, behind tea with, or a handshake from the President (Democratic of course), global warming, saving the Eskimos, following the latest pigeon migration, saving the whale, helping to support the illegally migrating Arabs and Mexicans, hot meals for condemned murderers. …. and more and more drek that I can’t bother to detail.
In fact, I would change my listing from 10th to about 35th.
The next generation of American Jews will not claim any kind of Jewish heritage, they have little even now. I exclude of course the religious Jew who hasn’t changed his name to Smith or Jones or Carnegie…. I already know that they popularised the reversal of the circumcision…. well documented about 50 years ago already.
I myself have met American many-generational Goyim named Isaacson who went back 4 generations before they found the original Jewish Isaacson.
If on the other hand, you are NOT Jewish, then I apologise to the Jewish People for including you.
Tenenbom commented upon what he saw. Such observations come closer to reality as they repeat themselves in his and in our experiences. It is too bad that the liberal Jewish community has been eating itself alive, but that is because of the inability to integrate all observations into a coherent picture. In zero-sum games, someone has to lose. Palestinian demands are of a zero-sum nature. There is no argument that trumps survival. Until they see value in the survival of their enemies, let them eat dirt.
@ Robert Margulies:
Apropos of nothing:
This must be your Beth Shalom
http://cbstricities.org/
But, I accidentally discovered another one. Amazing:
Frank Lloyd Wright’s only synagogue — also Conservative in a suburb of Philadelphia
Amazing looking
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beth_Sholom_Congregation_(Elkins_Park,_Pennsylvania)
https://www.google.com/maps/uv?hl=en&pb=!1s0x89c6b0c919334161:0xf7457c678e8fbca2!2m19!2m2!1i80!2i80!3m1!2i20!16m13!1b1!2m2!1m1!1e1!2m2!1m1!1e3!2m2!1m1!1e5!2m2!1m1!1e4!3m1!7e115!4shttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beth_Sholom_Congregation_(Elkins_Park,_Pennsylvania)!5sbeth+shalom+frank+lloyd+wright+-+Google+Search&imagekey=!1e1!2shttps://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e4/FLW_Beth_Sholom_exterior.jpg/250px-FLW_Beth_Sholom_exterior.jpg&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiqke_3zqfTAhUHyoMKHaRDDFsQoioIiwEwDg
First: I assure you he did not visit Congregation Beth Shalom in Richland WA.
Unfortunately, I agree with commentator that Conservative Judaism is waning.
It is a reality of today that the center cannot hold in almost anything except Police work.
There will be reform Jews who are indistinguishable from Protestants or Muslims, and Orthodox who will become more numerous.
Regarding the left leaning commentator: Those of who took an oath to The Constitution of The United States recognize that O and C were, are and will be Anti-American. They are ill.
Trump is not perfect; Moshiach has not yet arrived; but better than anything else that was available.
Those who not approve of the Kushner’s orthodoxy are free to look elsewhere.
I have yet to see or hear of the stream of left sided ‘artists’, ‘actors’, ‘pundits’ and general fools who pledged to leave this country demonstrate their ethics and integrity. They are still here. A Shandah.
And I am not a redneck.
MD MPH FACPM FACEP FACFE
Captain USN Retired
WA State Sworn and Commissioned Peace Officer
Historian
Conservationist
Constitutionalist
Sue Roberts Said:
http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/campaign-updates/hillary-clintons-connection-oil-gas-industry/
“18 revelations from Wikileaks’ hacked Clinton emails
27 October 2016
From the section US & Canada ”
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-37639370
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/441573/hillary-clinton-corruption-foundation-was-key
I am a NY City rent-stablized tenant and I just read that she is thinking of running for Mayor against De Blasio. While I vote Republican at the national level and I don’t like De Blasio’s national and international politics, I agree with rent controls and subsidies that benefit the poor and I agree with Gov. Cuomo’s new free 4 year college education for full time students with good grades who stay in the state for a few years. I like De Blasio’s rent freeze for one year leases which was just upheld by the courts. But, forget about the national vote, as somebody who votes Left in local elections out of economic interest, being poor myself, I would be terrified of a Mayor Hillary Clinton. She is so corrupt, she’d be another Ed Koch*, my rent would go up 300 percent and I’d be homeless in no time.
*Actually, she’s more corrupt than Koch. He just let his cronies collect, taking nothing for himself but political power and the limelight and prestige that go with it; he served 4 terms, became a respected pundit after, and they renamed the 59th St. Bridge after him after he croaked.
Incidentlally, like Mayor Mike Bloomberg, President Trump is working without salary. The Clintons became wealthy in and through political office.
In 2005, he paid 38 million dollars in taxes, much more than the Clintons.
I don’t always agree with the President, I actually wanted to vote for Huckabee, and voted for Cruz in the Primary, my sole criterion for President being support for Israel, but I respected them all and still do. More than I can say for Crooked Hillary.
@ Sue Roberts:
I’m sure you recall:
http://www.timesofisrael.com/jewish-voice-for-peace-to-host-convicted-terrorist-at-confab/
And
http://forward.com/news/340488/jewish-students-hold-nakba-commemoration-event-despite-hillel-organization/
Non-representative? From the horse’s aperture:
http://ideas.time.com/2011/09/29/why-fewer-young-american-jews-share-their-parents-view-of-israel/
“Climate Change” Pretext for blood libels Against israel
http://m.jpost.com/#/app/article/437312
@ Sue Roberts:
I googled: pro Palestinian Chicago synagogue
“Chicago Rabbi Quits Synagogue After pro-Palestine Stance Creates Tension”
http://www.haaretz.com/jewish/news/.premium-1.614341
http://www.timesofisrael.com/why-millennials-flock-to-chicagos-non-zionist-synagogue/
I googled: street chicago rabbis
http://jstreet.org/about-us/our-supporters/rabbinic-and-cantorial-cabinet/rabbi-peter-s-knobel/#.WPKPwxkpDqA
I googled: Israel apartheid rabbis
http://mondoweiss.net/2017/03/daughter-defense-apartheid/#respond
Poor, brain-washed woman: “his anti-science, anti-women, anti-ethics, anti-climate change, anti-education and alt-right leanings.” Not a single one of these accusations is true, and of course she offers no examples to back them up, but she’s likely not interested in facts. Dear M. Roberts, do a bit of research and you’ll find that the global warming hysteria, for example, is and was a fraud, perfect for folks like you.
I appreciated watching the video. Tenenbom said it repeatedly during the interview: he writes what he sees and hears from people he meets randomly and interviews, his findings are not based on a short phone call. If anyone were to do otherwise, it would be commentary, not factual. As for his statistical analysis, he has a right to his opinion. No one is compelled to agree with him. If another individual were to do a survey, I am sure the critics would challenge and manipulate the person’s findings as they please. Anyone who believes world anti-semitism ended with the defeat of Naziism and WWII needs to see a psychiatrist, not an optometrist. Jewish hatred simply morphed into anti Israel and anti Zionism, and unfortunately many liberated American Jews have been and remain blind to this evolution.
I take back my earlier criticism; I had a mistaken impression of him as an anti-American European liberal. He’s doing terrific work. Two great interviews I found on Youtube concerning earlier works.
“Interview Heats up between Tuvia Tenenbom and Yael Lavie of i24 News”
https://youtu.be/jia43vZ0wMo
“Catch the Jew” – Tuvia Tenenbom and Caroline Glick
https://youtu.be/M_qzIEXs3WM
@ Sue Roberts:
I hope you stick around long enough to read what followers of Israpundit have to say about your baseless accusations. You will find that they base all their beliefs and policies on the facts and the law.
If anybody has an unsubstantiated view of things, you do.
Maybe if you hung around you will see that for yourself and learn a few things.
As for the Chicago area, you may well be right. But I would venture to guess that you are one of the liberal Jews that Tenenbom refers to who thinks Israel is apartheid or is at least stealing Palestinian land. Tell me I am wrong or at least state your views.
In my experience Tenenbom has it right about American Jews and their Rabbis.
Israpundit is dedicated to supporting Israel and Jews based on truth and reality.. Rather than make unsubstantiated claims that it is not “factual”, challenge us on any factual error. Deal in specifics.
I know a good eye and hearing doctor this visiting Israeli author should go to and then let him take his alleged trip across America again.
:
Relax, buddy.
In a generation (or sooner) those reformed “temples” are going to be converted, in wave-like fashion, to either orthodox synagogues or mosques.
Or local Democratic party executive offices.
Or affordable housing for burned-out, Bernie supporters.
Most American Jews are liberals. Liberalism is a mental disorder. Need any further explanation?
I do not know which temples Tenenbom visited but, at least in the Chicago area, his comments are not supported. Also, I find many of your articles are so far from center and factual, it is disturbing. You all seem to be so pro-Trump just because of how he views the Middle East, you overlook the damage he is doing to America — his anti-science, anti-women, anti-ethics, anti-climate change, anti-education and alt-right leanings; I find it disturbing that you propagate his lies and allow for his conflicts of interest. You are so blinded by your seeming hatred of Obama and Clinton, you let it cloud your vision. No Obama was not perfect, but his national policies were good even if his foreign policies are weak. Clinton had her share of baggage but at least she was sane. This current American “leader” will change his policies with the wind depending on how they will best benefit the 1% in this country with the most wealth and influence. He is a narcissistic egomaniac who doesn’t care about America in the least. He is more concerned about himself. He doesn’t seem to care if he destroys the environment or people’s lives. He does not care a whit about “tikkun olam.” And his daughter and her husband are about as Orthodox as the Pope is Martian. She never covers herself, he never wears a kippah and neither stops lying. I have just about had it with your publication and its propagation of extremist views. Try reporting empirical facts some time? Maybe then my views will change. And, I’d bet, given the chance, Trump will turn on Israel too if it means he’ll turn a profit from it!