Obama’s Chanukah parties have had issues in the past. But this time it teetered over into full-blown violently offensive territory. Obama’s own remarks were boilerplate inoffensive stuff. Israel’s President Rivlin, a political hack who desperately sucks up to the media, was equally insipid.
But the White House chose Susan Talve to light the Menorah. Talve is a member of the anti-Israel group T’ruah which is currently promoting assorted “soft BDS” programs. She’s also a Ferguson activist. Her behavior was deeply insulting to the religious Jewish community and made it clear that the White House was determined to hijack even a Chanukah party to promote an anti-Jewish agenda.
So the general conviviality of the Chanukah party was disrupted by a crazed rant from Susan Talve in which she seemed determined to jam as many leftist talking points as possible in her limited time. Instead of talking about Chanukah, Talve blathered on about getting, “guns off our streets” and to “clean up the fires of toxic nuclear waste”.
Talve screeched, “I stand here with my fierce family of clergy and black lives matter activists who took to the streets of Ferguson”.
Having celebrated the race riots which destroyed a community, she pivoted to Syrian Muslim migrants. Chanukah is a celebration of the Maccabees defeating a Syrian occupation, but Talve may not even know that. Radical clergy tend to be light on the religion and heavy on the social justice.
Instead she rambled on about how the “gates of this nation would stay open for all immigrants and all refugees”.
Then, not satisfied with having made a disgrace of the Chanukah ceremony, Susan Talve declared, “I stand here to light these lights to say no the darkness of Islamophobia and Homophobia and Transphobia.”
Talve babbled about insuring “justice for Palestinians” and began gleefully chanting, “Ins’Allah, Ins’Allah”. Or “Allah Willing”.
I don’t recall Susan Talve mentioning G-d or a word of Jewish scripture. Indeed she spent more time talking about Muslims than about anything in Judaism. And yet that’s typical for Social justice clergy who have no organic ties to Judaism.
