The event is scheduled for 8 p.m. March 29.
Rabbi Wolpe’s pointed introduction. Audio Audio
I arrive at 7:15 p.m. Sinai Temple’s foyer is filled and there’s a long line of cars waiting to get into the parking lot.
7:30 p.m. The doors to the sanctuary open and hundreds of us pour through. There’s a fighting over seats that I’ve never seen in a church.
One man, Gary*, describes another man as “mad.”
Gary and his wife page through the Etz Hayim chumash (Pentateuch) and share some dirty with a friend about sexual discharge.
I ask to look.
Gary and I start talking about the Iraq war. He supports it. “Any chance to kill Arabs.”
Temple Sinai cantor Joseph Gale sings the Star Spangled Banner and then a beautiful young woman sings Hatikva.
“Whoa, who is that woman?” I ask.
“We never had cantors like that in shul when I was a kid,” says Gary. “It makes you want to join up.”
His wife elbows him.
A World War II veteran gives a long introduction. “In the few minutes allowed to me,” he drones and there are titters and raised eyebrows around me.
Daniel Pipes says that we are in a war with radical Islam, not Islam in general and not terrorism. Our enemy is those Muslims who want to take over the world by force.
Pipes says that the Democratic candidates for president don’t talk about radical Islam. He says that John Kerry compared the problem of terrorism to other nuisances such as prostitution that will always be with us.
The Democrats are the party of 9/10 and the Republicans are the party of 9/12.
Pipes did not include the war in Iraq as part of the war on terror.
Forty five minutes into the talk, the crowd starts streaming out. Pipes is not a commanding speaker.
