Steve Sailer: Russian Adventuresses (with family in Israel) and the Farooks

Comments to Steve Sailer:

* What strikes me as very unusual is that a Russian immigrant with family ties to Israel would hook up with a Pakistani Muslim. That deserves a closer investigation.

* USA as flophouse/shopping mall. Ask a native white or black American in my home state where they live and they tell you, “Atlanta,” or “Dahlonega” or “Brunswick.” Americans are apt to express regional pride: the South, the Appalachians, out West.

But to immigrants it’s all one undifferentiated, AMERICA!, and they gravitate to wherever their patronage networks are or the green card-spouse, etc. and drift around from there. Never really settling in, adopting a consumerist, shallow, secular lifestyle. The perfect citizens for an all-grasping federal government and its mega-corp sponsors.

* I don’t know what scam the sister’s parents used to get into Israel but all the clues point to the sisters have little or no Jewish origin. They are as Jewish as a ham sandwich.

Sharon’s looks have an explanation – his mother was a Subbotnik – these were Russian Christian peasants who spontaneously adopted Judaism on their own and were not (at least at first) accepted as Jews by the Jewish community. A lot of them went to Palestine and ironically they were much more religious than the Jewish Zionists, most of whom leaned toward socialism. The closest equivalent in the US would be the Black “Jews” like Michelle Obama’s cousin the “Rabbi”. Eventually the Subbotniks who went to Palestine blended into the regular Jewish community.

Possibly the sisters’ parents claimed Subbotnik ancestry as their ticket to Israel. The article says that they are from a village nearly 400 miles south of Moscow. That general area is where the Subbotniks were centered. This area is outside the Pale of Settlement (the portion of Poland annexed to Russia in the 18th century) where all the real Jews were originally located. Prior to that annexation, Russia had (other than the Subbotniks) very few Jews.

* Earlier articles had the girls from Voronezh, which I assume is the local big town, in Russia, about 150 miles NE of Kharkiv (which is in the Eastern Ukraine). This would be about the furthest German advance into Russia in WW2 (for context: they made it about another 100-200 miles to the SE towards Volgograd (Stalingrad). I’m thinking Kursk was fought just about there.)

I agree that the girls do not look particularly Jewish, but I’m guessing they are dying their hair also. I think it’s also true that to get to Israel there must have been some Jewish ancestry, however, my experience with Soviet Jews back in the day is that for the most part they were secular and frequently had non-Jewish spouses. I’m not sure what fraction of heritage is used: I’ve heard of immigrants from the former USSR having 1/4 German heritage getting into Germany, not sure what standard applies to Israel. It seems likely that one of the parents is “Jewish” by Russian ethnic category. Incidentally, the earlier Washington, DC marriage explains the Italian surname cited earlier for the eldest sister.

Also worth mentioning that this part of Russia, i.e., anything in the area south or north of Moscow and moving East is going to be still very ethnically diverse, not only Jews of various ethnic origins (e.g., Subbotniks, Circassians — I actually knew a Circassian Jewish family in NYC 40 years ago who were thoroughly assimilated) but also the various Finno-Ugric tribes (Mordvin, Mari, etc.) who are going to be hard to tell from anyone else without some powerful “Slavdar.” Remember the old saying, “Scratch a Russian, find a Tatar” — think Charles Bronson — the Russian Empire was very diverse.

* Sharon did not become prime minister until 2000/01. The immigrants came to Israel mostly during the 80s and 90s, under governments of both right and left. And bringing them in was not controversial among Jewish Israelis. The right, the Jewish left and the religious Zionists all wanted them. The Left, in particular, wanted them because the Russians are secular Ashkenazim (those of them who are Jewish). Unfortunately for the Left, the Russian immigrants, although they remain nonreligious and hostile to the ultra-Orthodox (“haredi”) parties, generally vote for right-of-center parties and have no sympathy for the Left’s Arab mascots and no use for the Left’s secular progressive ideology, which reminds them of communism. Perhaps the Left now regrets having brought in the Russians, but they’re stuck with them.

The haredi parties, as well as the haredi chief rabbinate, may have been unhappy about the Russian immigrants, but the haredim are not really Zionist parties in the first place, and represent only around 10% of the population.

* Voronezh was precisely the center of the Subbotnik movement. Hair dyed or not, the girls register zero on my Jewdar for actual Ashkenazi ancestry.

Since Jewish descent is matrilineal, as long as their maternal grandmother was Jewish (in turn had a Jewish mother) the rest doesn’t matter, but I’m still voting for a Subbotnik claim.

Israel hasn’t really looked that hard at the Soviet “Jews” – they figure that if you identify as Jewish that’s one more for their team and anyway your kids will grow up as Zionists in a Jewish atmosphere, serve in the Israeli army, etc. so whatever residue of Christianity you had (e.g. posing under a Christmas tree) will fade away in a generation or two. Sharon is the ultimate example. Many Russian “Christians” are atheist anyway and having emigrated to Israel as supposed Jews are in no position to attend church or associate themselves with organized Christianity.

* I was in an upscale mall near Bethesda, MD, this weekend. Maybe 20% of the patrons were white Americans; the rest were Indian/East Asians, in family groupings, and a smattering of Hispanics. Aside from the immediate observation that they were all (from the 3 year olds through the waddling mothers and fathers to the abuelas) monstrously unattractive, they were all obviously pretty well-off (other than the Hispanics, who appeared to be there to go to Target and Costco). My guess (based on the horrible clothes, lack of fluent English and poor grooming) was that the key demographic among the fathers was H1-B/former H1-B computer programmers making in the 90-150k range. In any case, despite the unpleasant feeling witnessing all of this gave me in the pit of my stomach, it was clearly giving the American consumer goods industry one hell of a shot in the arm (the place was absolutely buzzing, from GameStop to Nordstrom and Saks). It is experiences like this that tell you what you *really* need to know about the bi-partisan consensus on race replacement in America.

* Their identity seems to be rather fluid depending on whatever door they want opened. It doesn’t seem as if they actually care much about ethnic-religious-racial identity and just hook up with those who seem compatible on a personal basis, entering the ranks of the masses of mixed-meat people of the US. I wouldn’t call them gold-diggers though since the men they got involved with were rather low in status and money nor were they very good-looking men. Just some floaters like millions of others.

* “The white or yellow ones seem to assimilate within a few generations. It’s a matter of what groups you can marry into.”

Assimilate in the sense of becoming indistinguishable by speech or mannerisms alone? Perhaps. But they bring their particular social capital to this country – the kind of social capital that allows them to work at mall kiosks, become garage beauticians, and run immigration grifts – and that stays. What really happens is that the country assimilates to them and becomes more like them.

* “While Marquez lived at his parents’ home — they knew nothing of the marriage — his wife continued to live with and date her ex-boyfriend, he told investigators, according to the affidavit.”

“Date” has become a four-letter word.”

Indeed. They were dating each others brains out, no doubt.

* This describes the mall near me pretty closely. Is it just mall culture? Tons of people from the Middle East and Eastern Europe, and yeah, they operate those kiosks down the center of the mall selling worthless junk. Do those kiosks actually make any money? I wonder if there’ll be an expose on them some time as just scams to get money from the people opening them.

Interesting juxtaposition here in my white, Republican county in NoCal. I was called for jury duty and wound up in a hallway with about 95% white people. Only one black guy, and a handful of Asians/Hispanics. We’re the registered voters, see. What a contrast to the mall just down the street! Whites vote and sit on juries, immigrants shop and run kiosks.

* Mexers are Mexophobic.

They kill one another, distrust one another, and try to flee to gringoland.

* I was in an “outlet mall” in the Philadelphia suburbs and experienced the same thing – the crowd was maybe 80% non-white, mostly immigrant. Maybe these are the only people with any disposable income or maybe white people shop on the internet nowadays or already have most of the crap they need and have renounced materialism, but I’m sure that if all the immigrants disappeared tomorrow that mall would go broke in a matter of weeks. Then again, probably 90+% of the stuff they were selling in that mall was also imported. Perhaps someday they will figure out a way to sell made in Bangladesh clothes to Bangladeshis in Bangladesh so they won’t have to go 7,000 miles in order to buy stuff made in their home country. Aside from the fat corporate profits that come from selling $10 Chinese sneakers for $100 once you put a “swoosh” on them, these malls do provide some minimum wage jobs for the cashiers and stock clerks, but that’s about it.

* Speaking only of the immigrant Russian Jewish women I know, they all look unequivocally Ashkenazi, as if they’d just stepped out of a Gustav Klimt painting (e.g. Adele Bloch-Bauer). Their notable character traits include intelligence, warmth, honesty, moderation, and an uncanny aesthetic sense. They seem to have none of the bitter sharpness or odd superstitions of ethnic Russians. They do gravitate towards other Russian Jews and non-Russian former SSR types (Georgians, Armenians…) but they are not exclusive, readily forming friendships with your typical educated American. The best social event I’ve ever attended was a quasi-secular Russian Jewish wedding. Everyone went out of their way to make us feel welcome. The joie de vivre at that event was pretty overwhelming. Providing that the sisters Chernykh were the exception proving the rule, we could do with more Russian Jewish immigrants.

* Perhaps third world immigrants (headed up by a respectably-paid patriarch, as opposed to East African cab drivers) are the only group in America (of those able to afford it) for whom the gaudy consumer experience of a tacky, generic shopping mall is actually still exciting? Most whites I know, even outside of the SWPL urban bubble, find this sort of thing as exhausting, stressful and dehumanizing as I do, and resort to it because they really need to buy some new houseware or other annoying-to-order-online item. As opposed to newly economically empowered third worlders, for whom it remains a great day out (and provides lots of opportunities to post to social media for their relatives back at home, who will no doubt be here as well in a few years).

It reminds me of a recurring theme on this blog: third world immigrants, both at the relatively high IQ end (Indian business analysts and systems engineers), through the criminally-inclined (former soviets) to the mestizo end, have incredibly poor taste and aesthetic sensibilities by the standards of modern SWPLs.

* For a United Nations experience, go to almost any mall in the greater Los Angeles area, especially in the San Fernando Valley and mid-Wilshire. You will find a range of nationalities to match the languages, such as the Hollywood elementary school that had 56 different languages spoken.

There must be a high demand for cell phone cases and screen protectors, based on the demographics. In parts of the east Valley, there is a vibe of Nice cell phone you have there, shame if something were to happen to it.

In the smaller shopping areas in Malibu you usually hear English with some Scandinavian and other European languages spoken by au pairs and tourists depending on the season. There may be the odd Hebrew or Farsi speaker on occasion.

* Although the Subbotniks adopted (some) Jewish religious practices, they were otherwise indistinguishable from other Russian peasants. They were as different from Ashkenazi Jews in the Pale as chalk and cheese. As I said before, the closest equivalent in America would be “Black Hebrews”.

* I crossed paths occasionally with a literacy volunteer who taught a bunch of the “Russian Jews” to read English, or in some cases, read. One woman he taught, whom I met, was a Russian non-Jew married to a Jew. She was frustrated because no one would be straight up with her about how to spell her first name “in an American way.” Her name, Angelica, was transliterated by her handlers as something like Anzhelyikeh, though I think it had more letters than that.

The fact was, her handlers wanted her to retain her apartness. She wanted to assimilate as fast as possible. She used to listen to English regional dialect tapes at the public library to practice them, since, as she put it, she didn’t know where she was going to end up finding a job, and wanted not to “Stick out like too stupid to learn. Like, you know, those Allied Drive people.”

That was local code for blacks. She had been in the US for two weeks before noticing racial differences, and her literacy tutor (NY Ashkenazi lefty Jew) took it on himself to try to brainwash her otherwise. It didn’t work. She eventually asked for another tutor, and he told me that she “had become a fascist,” and he reported her as such to the program. I doubt it amounted to anything. In any event he soon gave up tutoring. But I digress.

* The US has become an undefended target in the eyes of millions of people who plan to come here and NEVER GO HOME. Obviously these sisters are two examples of that. What makes their case particularly galling is that they had a First World haven in Israel with their parents but no, they had to come here too.

We spend trillions on defense and yet we are defenseless. We spend trillions on making other First World countries safe (Europe, Japan, South Korea) yet we do not take care of ourselves.

It all just makes me sick.

* There wasn’t a buried lede, there was no lede – when is Maria being deported for engaging in a sham marriage? Weren’t the reporters interested in that question? They already have Enrique admitting to engaging in marriage fraud. Maria is the “Great White Illegal” that can be used as a poster-child for deportation. You’d think that the press, depressed at their bad luck at never hitting blackjack for the “Great White Defendant” in murder and rape cases or the “Great White Terrorist” would jump at the chance to highlight the “Great White Illegal” and yet they don’t want to lift the lid on this issue and write about deporting Maria.

* There are enormous distinctions and differences between pre-1924 Great Wave immigrants and post-1965 immigrants, and every one of the differences of the post-1965 immigrants has contributed far less to us than the plundering they’ve done to the United States. Pre-1924 immigrants contributed to building the United States and aspired to and attained assimilation that, by 1940, had melded us into One People (we were even proud of our regional distinctions, to the point that Americans joked good-naturedly about them); while the post-1965 immigrants have come merely to feed parasitically off of the rotting welfare state splinter-group-identity-politics corpse of what used to be our country. The contrast is blindingly obvious to ordinary Americans who lived and knew our One People era, but is invisible to ordinary Americans who grew up from 1960 on.

* “Adventuresses” is a really flamboyant term for women who hawk phone protectors in the mall or run hair salons from their garage.

* That presupposes they are satisfied with their station in life. I doubt this. Adventuress is pretty apt for a couple of gals who have crossed several borders and dated several men when it has been to their advantage. Not forgetting the deceit of at least the younger sister.

The only heartwarming part is that you have Jews and Muslims dating on a regular basis. Who said the peace process was dead.

* She will be deported likely once they convict her dumb mestizo patsy of immigration fraud (the technical charge is called something different, I can’t remember what exactly). They won’t charge her with a crime, more than likely — while jail time is technically a legal sanction for immigrants engaging in fraud of this nature, they very rarely pursue this course of action. The usual option is simply deportation – which makes a lot more sense, really. But deport they (almost) always do. There is simply no way you are staying in the US after you’ve been judged to have engaged in immigration fraud. The fact that there are tens of millions of turd worlders living it up here tends to obscure this reality in the perceptions of many, but it is in fact a reality.

Also — deporting her right now as a perpetrator of immigration fraud would surely be prejudicial to the criminal case being faced by Marquez, no?

* The Dallas Cowboys became America’s team and now America has become the world’s country. Everybody thinks America is their country. All they have to do is move here and we have no say about it. We have to accept them and let them take our jobs, although according to the elites there is no such thing as “our jobs”. America is really getting to be a big joke.

* I wasn’t born here, I came here legally. I went before the Judges, I even went to a passport photo location that was on the list given to me by the government because that was one of the locations on the list, I’m sure I could have gone anywhere for the photos. I went to the interviews, it never occurred to me to cut corners or take shortcuts. I took these things seriously, I thought it meant something. I wanted to be an American and that meant doing things like the Americans did them. I look at these people and all I see is slime, sleazebags that have no principles other than getting what they want as easily and quickly as they want. Nothing means anything besides gimme. I can barely read the news anymore. People from outside and people inside. I am waiting for the day when there will be a full magazine spread of the Kardashians taking a shit. What has happened to us? My God, we are in a light speed race to the bottom. I met some new “immigrants” from XXXX recently and they were wearing Nike headbands, I almost crapped my guts. Even the ISIS murderers are wearing Nike headbands. It seems all there is COOL! Blah! Whatever!

* “So if were an HBD inclined female you would feel better being gang raped by a platoon of 110 IQ Japanese soldiers vs. a platoon of 80 IQ Negro soldiers”.

Yes. Smaller penis size. Not so painful.

*

* The New York Times has an interesting map about Trump’s Republican support across the Nation. The Trump Belt basically tracks Appalachia into the Deep South. Trump’s support is strongest in West Virginia and then New York State. He seems particularly popular in North Carolina, and the Deep South States of Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana. It would be interesting if there was a Scots-Irish aspect to Trump support as he is the son of the Outer Hebrides. Louisiana makes sense for some strange reason as they have a penchant for “Big Man” politics and larger than life characters, but Alabama and Mississippi supporting a Yankee is interesting.

Seems like Trump is popular with “Former Californians” in Oregon, Nevada, Arizona and perhaps Hawaii. In general, Trump polls well in California, admittedly these are California Republicans. The same can be said about Hawaiian Republicans and New York Republicans.

Trump polls worst in the Mountain West. In particular, the Republican stronghold of Utah has no time for him. I assume his larger than life persona that helps him in Louisiana and New York gets little mileage in more milquetoast and sane Utah. It would seem that the Mountain West with the least exposure to the wonders of Diversity are the States least interested in Trump’s message.

* A few years back, we had a lot of burglaries in the Hollywood hills. The police were flummoxed. Driving out of my friends apartment in the area of concern, I notice an spent out looking Eastern European guy standing in front of his building. I said, “you see that guy? There’s your burglary problem.”
He says, “how do you know?” I said “because I know a Russian or an Eastern European fresh off the boat when I see em. You’ve got fresh eurotrash living in some apartment in the area, and they’re organized.”
Long story short, the police held stake outs, and found that it was exactly as I’d said.
The Russians they could catch were prosecuted, their apartments raided, and the burglaries stopped. But not before one of em got into my friends gated parking area, and relieved one of the tenants of their Beemer at gunpoint.
They’re pretty easy to pick out, since the don’t know how to blend in, aside from being white. Shitty clothes or track suits, gold chains, greased back hair, stupid look on their face, etc.
If you see the likes of them hanging in an expensive neighborhood, its not good.
Luckily, they think they blend in, but they don’t. All you have to do is pay attention, and call the cops when you see them hanging around.

* Tragically for Bill Cosby’s son, he didn’t haul out of there when changing his tire in the Hollywood Hills.

* Between 1968 and 1973, almost all Soviet Jewish emigres resettled in Israel. By 1975-1976, however, a near majority favored resettlement in the United States. While the government of Israel wanted all emigres to resettle in Israel, many American Jewish leaders supported “freedom of choice” — the right of Soviet Jewish emigres to choose their country of resettlement. In 1989, however, when Mikhail Gorbachev allowed free emigration for Soviet Jews and over 90 percent preferred to come to the United States, American Jewish leaders supported their government’s policy to limit the entry of Soviet Jews as political refugees.

Even before the monthly dropout [dropouts being Jewish refugees who were opting not to go to Israel] figure rose above 50 percent in March 1976, the situation alarmed the Israeli government. The Israelis and their supporters argued that Israel needed these highly skilled and well-educated potential immigrants for its survival. They could make an important contribution to Israel’s economic development and help in the demographic struggle between a declining Jewish majority and very fertile Arab minority.1

In the confrontation over dropouts, all parties assumed that most Soviet Jewish emigres would prefer to settle in Israel. Understated was a position articulated later by Gitelman, Salitan, and others that most emigres after 1973 preferred the United States with its perceived greater economic opportunities. Gitelman suggests that those Soviet Jews with stronger Jewish identities from the Baltics, Moldavia, and Georgia went to Israel, while more assimilated Jews from the Soviet heartland preferred the West. Most Soviet Jewish Zionists who only wanted to immigrate to Israel had done so by 1973. The overwhelming majority leaving after 1973 were motivated more by economic betterment than by Zionist ideology. They saw Israel as a very small market with fewer opportunities.

At the meeting on July 15, 1976, Max Fisher, Chairman of the Board of Governors, presented an American position which recommended that Soviet emigres who exited on Israel visas and dropped out should not be aided in Vienna. This policy would go into effect once Soviet Jews had sufficient time to learn about the new policy. Those not wanting to go to Israel would have to apply in the Soviet Union for visas to other countries on the basis of family reunification. American Jewish organizations would pressure their government for visas for family reunification and provide aid to the refugees coming to the United States. They would discourage non-Jewish American refugee support organizations from helping dropouts.

The Israelis may have influenced Douglas’s thinking on Soviet Jewish refugees. He met with Raphael Kotlowitz, head of the Immigration and Absorption Department of the Jewish Agency, and also discussed “dropouts” with Yehuda Lapidot, head of the Liaison Bureau. Rather than request a change in U.S. policy, Lapidot explained to Douglas the Israeli policy of invitations, which involved a commitment to absorb them and to give them citizenship. He also explained that the same policy existed for Romanian Jews who also arrived as immigrants to Israel. He asked Douglas why the United States did not consider them refugees too. Why was American policy different vis-a-vis Jews from the Soviet Union? Realizing that Soviet Jews had the alternative of immigrating to Israel in the context of an overburdened American refugee load may have led Douglas to reconsider the American policy of granting all Soviet Jewish emigres refugee status. He came to believe that it was in the best interest of both the United States and Israel to have the maximum number of Soviet Jews resettle in Israel.

At a dinner in November 1988, Undersecretary of State Richard Schifter suggested that the “United States may one day limit entry of Jews from the Soviet Union.” He emphasized that this was due to the large number of those being let out and “particularly when there is another country of refuge — Israel.” He also noted that much of the financial burden for resettling Soviet Jews would rest with American Jewry. Whereas Ambassador Douglas had suggested a similar policy in the early 1980s and met insurmountable opposition from American Jewish organizations, in 1989 the American Jewish establishment would support the new American restrictions on refugee status for most Soviet Jews. It would abandon freedom of choice.

Finally, in contrast to the 1970s, the American Jewish establishment in 1989 was more willing to support the Israeli demand that Soviet Jews be resettled in Israel. Many felt Israel needed them and that Israel provided a better opportunity for them to remain Jewish and part of the Jewish people. Costs were also less and it was easier to raise money among American Jews to resettle Soviet Jews in Israel than in the United States.

In recalling this period many years later, several Jewish lay leaders and professionals argued that they and the majority of American Jewry remained committed to freedom of choice; that Soviet Jews were entitled to choose where they wanted to live. We may prefer that they go to Israel, they argued, but we cannot decide for them. To a great extent, however, by 1989 the CJF leadership and the American Jewish establishment had qualified and then abandoned their support for freedom of choice.

Soviet Jews exiting after November 6, 1989, would not be allowed to apply for visas as refugees at American Embassies in Europe. In addition, aid for dropouts in Europe from HIAS and JDC would be curtailed. This “ended” the dropout phenomena. According to Rabbi Israel Miller, the dropout problem “was resolved by the United States Government by creating a quota.”

This arrangement of a two-track system in Moscow resulted in Israel becoming, “by default, the destination for the vast majority of Jews seeking refuge.” With the opening of the gates in 1989, most Soviet Jewish emigres chose to go to Israel. Almost 400,000 did so between 1989 and 1992. Far fewer went to the United States.

For the time being, the Soviets did not allow direct flights to Israel. To make sure that Soviet Jewish emigres did not drop out, Israel took the precaution of flying them via Eastern European countries. These countries did not allow emigrants to stay and agreed not to raise issues of freedom of choice. The Jewish Agency and Liaison Bureau set up transit sites in Bucharest, Warsaw, and Budapest. By the 1980s the American Jewish establishment supported “direct flights” via Communist countries. They were aware that this denied all participants the option of dropping out on their way to Israel.”

* Wikipedia: “Between 1989 and 2006, about 1.6 million Soviet Jews and their non-Jewish relatives and spouses, as defined by the Law of Return, emigrated from former Soviet Union.[1] About 979,000, or 61%, migrated to Israel. Another 325,000 migrated to the United States, and 219,000 migrated to Germany.[2][3] According to the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics, 240,000 of the immigrants who arrived in Israel, or 26%, were not considered Jewish by Orthodox interpretations of Jewish law (which only recognizes matrilineal descent), but were eligible for Israeli citizenship under the Law of Return due to patrilineal Jewish descent or marriage to a Jew.”

“Orthodox interpretations of Halakha recognize only matrilineal descent. However, the Law of Return qualifies anyone who has a Jewish grandparent, or is married to a Jew. As a result of this discrepancy, the immigration wave included many people who were not considered Jews by the Israeli Rabbinate, such as children of a Jewish father and non-Jewish mother, grandchildren of Jews, or non-Jewish spouses of Jews, who were eligible under the Law of Return. In 1988, a year before the immigration wave began, 58% of married Jewish men and 47% of married Jewish women in the Soviet Union had a non-Jewish spouse.[25] Some 26%, or 240,000, of the immigrants had no Jewish mother, and were thus not considered Jewish under Halakha, or Jewish religious law, which stipulates one must have a Jewish mother to be considered Jewish. This causes problems when they wish to marry, as in Israel marriage arrangements for all religious communities are made by the relevant religious authorities, and in the case of Jewish citizens, only by Orthodox rabbis. This leads many to marry abroad in civil ceremonies, as civil marriages conducted outside Israel are recognized upon the couple’s return.[26]”

“At the start of the mass immigration, almost all those immigrating from the former USSR were considered Jews under Halakha. The proportion of those who were not considered Jewish by Orthodox interpretations of Halakha among the immigrants consistently rose throughout the immigration wave. For example, in 1990 around 96% of the immigrants were Jews and only 4% were non-Jewish family members. However, in 2000, the proportion was: Jews – 47%, non-Jewish spouses of Jews – 14%, children from Jewish father and non-Jewish mother – 17%, non-Jewish spouses of children from Jewish father and non-Jewish mother – 6%, non-Jews with a Jewish grandparent – 14% and non-Jewish spouses of non-Jews with a Jewish grandparent – 2%.”

* Alas, these girls’ parents must be devastated by their choice to get involved romantically with people of non-European decent. As parents they must feel like complete & total failures.

* Republicans living in California, Hawaii or New York are people who aren’t choosing sides because of social proof but have decided to be Republicans in places where they will experience blow back for doing so. That tells me they are more committed to their principles and are likely to take the enemy more seriously.

* “We could do with more Russian Jewish immigrants.”

Yeah, because you can never have enough Medicaid fraud, welfare scams, car insurance scams and human trafficking.

* The problem with HBD is that you could use it to justify genocide on the grounds of the higher IQ group having the right to get rid of the lower IQ group in the most efficient way possible? While nationalism, like white nationalism is more about we want to like the way we are, and IQ arguments are only secondary in nature?

* Russian women are notorious for requiring BEEEG A-holes. Not just your standard grade jerks. BEEEG! Jerks. Bad boys. A-holes. A-holeness to a whole other level. Like Chechen level even.

If these Russian women had wanted money, well Silicon Valley is filled with nerds with money. But they never touched them. Heck they could have landed an up and coming Hollywood writer, on the theory that a strong female hand guiding them could turn a C lister screenwriter into an A lister producer. But they did not choose that.

Instead, what did two pretty young women with no money and no real support choose — the brother of a Jihadi who was low rent — his father a retired truck driver; and a Latino layabout, the latter with which the younger one had a child.

Here’s the perfect test case for the failure of beta male provision. Not even Uber, Lyft, and Dropbox money could persuade two attractive Russian women to stomach White beta male nerdiness — instead they chose two swarthy but dominant A-holes. Tingles uber alles. Heck not even the allure of Hollywood fame, of being maybe the wife of a big time producer could make them stomach the SWPL lack of uber-A-hole testosterone.

If Weed is the big vice of the male millenial generation, then A-hole testosterone is that of its women. There is enough money to be made for even relative failures scamming the system that beta male provisioning is worthless while Alpha male a-holeness is cost-less.

Something to ponder — as Jewish women shun anything but swarthy A-holes like the Russian women who probably are not Jewish, what will the Jewish male response be? Double down on the beta male strategy or Alpha Up via technology, including testosterone enhancement, artificial personality enhancement (don’t laugh, its already a DARPA project), and sex bots? Or simply switch gears and demand deportation of all the Alpha A-holes on the theory of likely scamming (true) and terrorism (at least probable for many).

* Chaim Amalek: “What is our response? What it has always been: Torah. That, and the faith that Hashem will send us a worthy Bais Yakov girl to marry.”

* Re: Warsaw Pact immigrants in Southern California.

Indeed, our merdia, to use the appropriate French moniker,
cannot be expected to pay attention to such trivial matters.
They are white, after all, so who cares?

But seriously, although most of the commenters concerned
themselves with the recent post-’90 Russian immigrants,
the vast majority of the immigrants from the Soviet bloc
prior to 1990 were from Poland, and they still form a
thriving community in So Cal, centered to some extent
around the church of Our Lady of the Bright Mount on
Adams Blvd in LA. The church, by the way, was partly
funded by Liberace (who was half-Polish), the entertainer
par excellence who at the time was one of the richest people
in show business.
The problem is that the U.S. has about 10 million Polish
Americans but they’ve been here so long (first settlers came
on the Mayflower, and major settlements started in Texas
around 1800) that they’re thoroughly assimilated, and so
largely invisible. Probably 3/4 changed names through
marriage or simplification: Congressman Rostenkowski’s
daughter shortened it to Rosten. How many people would
recognize Martha Stewart (née Kostyra), Meg Ryan (née Hyra),
Pat Benatar (née Andrzejewski) or Pat Sajak, for that
matter, as Polish?

In So Cal there are hundreds of thousands of Polish
Americans, born here or immigrants, typically well
educated and solidly middle class. They fund the annual
Polish Film Festival in Los Angeles and the Polish Music
Center at USC – devoted to more recent composers like
Szymanowski, Penderecki, Paderewski or Gorecki.

I’ve met a Polish woman who came here at the age of 10,
and today is a multimillionaire, thanks to wise investments
in California real estate. A UCLA degree didn’t hurt either.

* Many Polish Jews whom I’ve met in So Cal, who have immigrated
here from Poland in the last few decades, prefer not to associate
with the American-born Jews and either stick to themselves or
have close relations with the Polish immigrants. It’s no secret that
thousands of Polish Jews have double passports, and visit Poland
repeatedly.

As to the Russian immigrants, I saw a big influx of Russian students
at my university, starting in the mid-’90s, but after 2005 they seem
to have vanished. A couple of Russian girls were cleaning my university
office once, around 1997, and the first question they asked was, “Are
you married?” Similarly, I hear many of the 500,000 Ukrainians who
are in Poland on short-term work visas are hoping to snag a Polish
husband, particularly since the Ukrainian economy continues to
be in free fall. Will more Russian women start coming to Poland now
that Russia is going through a severe recession? Both Russia and
Ukraine have enormous surpluses of women, going into millions,
due to the short life expectancy of Russian and Ukrainian males.

MORE COMMENTS:

* For devious lowlifes, the US is a bonanza: aggressively-enforced civil rights laws, a tort system that rewards fraud, malls full of fat, dumb, happy marks, a Constitutional right to keep and bear arms, friendly, naive neighbors who’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and won’t ask a lot of questions. This appears to be enough to make a sham marriage to some thirsty schmuck with a steady job worth it in the criminal calculus.

If you’re a sleazy Subbotnik with adequate street-smarts, the US is a great place to live. Otherwise, you’re having to duke it out with all the other sleaze back home, among people who see you coming a mile away and cops who aren’t above the occasional beatdown.

* Emma Lazarus used the term “Golden Door” in “New Colossus” to describe this mindset: the door behind which all the bling and goodies can be found. Regrettably, I can’t remember the phrase in Yiddish.

* Nigerian email scammer made possibly millions of dollars but also made the mistake of being in the US on a student visa when he was caught.

Posted in Immigration, Israel, Russia | Comments Off on Steve Sailer: Russian Adventuresses (with family in Israel) and the Farooks

Trump Vs Jeb!

Comments to Steve Sailer:

* The “¡Jeb!” campaign is running out of cash and is canceling TV spots.

Get that fat tub of lard Karl Rove off his ass and actually earn some of the tens of millions “¡Jeb!” and Dubya have thrown his way.

Will the last of the loyal Bushies be able to lift themselves away from the feed trough at DC’s best steakhouses and spend January knocking on doors in Iowa?

I doubt it.

Though Culver’s does serve dam good butter burgers and custard. Hey, but only us wacist stale pale males in flyover country would know about that.

* The insistence on preparing every American teenager for college has been a disaster, and has created the “necessity” for immigration.

54 percent of industrial jobs has a middle skill level that is ignored by school administrators. These are all jobs that pay an adult, living wage with health care and pension plans right out of high school.

Another Obama/Clinton plan to make sure that the oligarchs who support them get their way in the immigration debate.

Baby boomers who do these jobs are retiring, but apparently these jobs that spotted a generation of Americans are inferior. It demonstrates the intellectuals and their superiority complex.

* After 6 months of denial, the establishment republicans must be in an absolute rage. (I hear that there’s threats of “hell to pay” for those working for Trump, administered by Mike Murphy’s minions).

Trump just undid their 25 year grip on the GOP, showing them to be treasonous to the base and worthless in electioneering. Pat Buchanan must be relishing it; best schadenfreude since Clinton beat Bush in 92.

* The Current Year. Well, Last Year at this point.

Google’s Year End encapsulating advert was ubiquitous on television over the past 72 hours. Basically, Transgender celebrity millionaire residing in a Malibu gated communities embraces Islamic migrants moving to Europe or something…something.

They touch upon the Charlie Hebdo shootings, but conveniently ignore the Paris massacres because I guess they were problematic .

Strangely, I was completely on board with the 2012 Google Year End message which demonstrates how much the “dialogue” has shifted in just three years.

* The NYT claims ¿Jeb? has a six-point plan to win the nomination:

1. Stay on the attack
2. Avoid embarrassment in Iowa
3. Do well in New Hampshire
4. Woo Lindsey Graham
5. Use the family network
6. Continue the ad blitz

It seems to me the only creative element of this brilliant six-point plan is to woo Lindsey Graham. It never would have occurred to me to waste one of my six points on Lindsey Graham.

* Romantic dinners. Long walks on the beach. Cuban cabana boys.

* Immigration, stupid.

Partly yes.

Like… it’s the economy, stupid.

Again, partly yes.

But not enough.

Clinton was a consummate politician, sleazy but slick and very likable as a New Democrat. Had it been another Democrat, the magic not have worked.
It’s possible someone like Clinton might have beaten Bush in 88. But Bush was against Dukakis who was bland and colorless. Strange for a Greek. Zorba he wasn’t. I don’t think Dukakis would have won in 92.

Same in 2015. We can’t discount personality. Trump’s personality is simply bigger than Jeb’s. Yes, Trump hit some right notes that appealed to the people. But it was the style and manner. Like they say in boxing, style makes the fight, and Trump has the style. He was born with it and honed it on the Apprentice.
He knows how to play. He said a bunch of things that could have hurt other candidates. But Trump has a tough chin. He can take the blows without staggering and looking hurt. His expression is ‘Is that the best you got?’ Also, he’s good with counterpunching. Jeb either cowers in the corner or flails wildly, failing to connect with a solid blow. And when he goes off and calls Trump a ‘jerk’, he sounds like a poor loser saying, ‘he hurt me real bad, boo hoo.’

Now, imagine a Jeb vs Trump where Jeb is the nationalist and Trump is the globalist.
Trump might still be ahead because his personality is just more fun and larger.

Politics is showbiz. The only reason Hillary lost to Obama in 2008 was because Obama was media savvy in ways Hillary wasn’t. Hillary breathes air like a sour fish and comes across like Nurse Ratched.
Some say Obama won cuz he’s black, but could Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton have pulled it off? His race did matter, but it was the way he was able to pitch it and play it.
Most blacks lacked that touch.

Now, Trump supporters like his positions, but it’s also true that Trump knows how to make anything fun, popular, cool, and appealing. He’s a born salesman. It’s like Roma in GLENGARRY GLENROSS could make shi* look like gold. He has the Midas Touch.
Jeb has the Manure Touch. He could touch gold and make it look like shi*.

Trump has it. Jeb doesn’t. Trump knows how to sell pens.

Trump asks Jeb to sell him a pen:

The Donald, along with the other Donald(King), sold the Tyson-Spinks fight as an event bigger than Ali-Foreman. He is a promoter. Someone who can promote something as phony as Tyson-Spinks and make millions can surely promote himself.

* Jeb’s keeping secret his plans to woo George Pataki and Jim Gilmour.

* “It’s Israel, Stupid – because it makes people refugees,” British Jewish journalist and author, Ben White, said on September 13, 2015.

“Many were recently appalled by Hungarian PM Victor Orban’s well-publicized remarks that the Syrian refugees represent a radical different culture and, purely because they’re mainly Muslims, constitute a threat to European Christianity. Few are aware, however, just how routine such rhetoric are in Israel, among cabinet ministers, lawmakers, academics, rabbis and commentators,” Ben white said.

* Well if I were the Republican establishment I would consider doing a cordon sanitaire around Trump, even to the extent of calling on the non-Trump Republicans to vote for Hillary. Like what happened in France against the FN.

* That would be the end of the Republican Party. Remember, Senor Priebus got support pledges from all the candidates for the eventual nominee.

* I’m not that crazy about Trump’s personality, in fact I don’t think he has the presidential temperament. The problem for me is that I agree with almost everything he says.

* You don’t get it. Trump’s personality and (professed) beliefs go hand-in-glove. A guy with Yeb’s personality would probably never be for border control. He’s the butt boy for the establishment. It’s baked into his personality. A guy with Trump’s personality would probably never run as an open borders candidate.

Bill Clinton’s pollster (Stan Greenberg, iirc) once quasi-famously claimed that he could predict a whole lot about a voter based on his answers to five questions, most of which weren’t explicitly political (e.g., whether the person had watched porn, etc. (this was before the internet was in widespread use and pretty much everyone had seen some porn)). The same could probably be said about politicians and where they stand. Given someone’s position on 4-5 issues a well-studied person could predict, with a high degree of accuracy, their stand on pretty much everything else.

* Trump’s cutting off Bush’s head and garishly displaying it as a trophy might help him in the general elections when he comes up against the other legacy candidate. By being the candidate that is not afraid to get into a pissing contest, he might get Hillary to either pull her punches or avoid exploiting some his perceived weak spots for fear of retaliation. Trump will be painted as inexperienced but Hillary’s experience is not really the kind people are necessarily looking for.

* Clinton in ’92 had Ross Perot helping him. Perot gained 19% of the popular vote which largely took votes away from Bush. In ’96 Perot gained 7% of the popular vote, which largely benefitted Clinton (though admittedly Dole was a horrible campaigner and would’ve lost no matter what). But each time what was seen then has parallels to Obama’s two GOP counterparts in the general election. While voters didn’t prefer the Democrats by a landslide, the GOP candidate was seen as largely bland, boring, a horrible campaigner and lacked anything that resembled a common touch with ordinary voters.

It truly must be the immigration issue, because of the GOP donors had any sense, they could easily unite behind Trump without any major problems. He isn’t considered a conservative a la “family values” and is known as a dealmaker. Based solely on the issues, and for those who are moderate to slightly liberal, what’s not to like about his candidacy? Except for the immigration issue. Which tends to have shown that for the GOP donors as a whole, immigration is a major issue if not the main issue of this campaign.

In one sense, Trump isn’t any different than Bill Clinton who really dumbed down the style or the way in which modern presidential candidates campaign for office. If some don’t like his bombastic style, well, how come it was just fine for Obama? If some don’t like his personal life, well, how come it was just fine for Bill Clinton?

In the end if it comes down to pure style, Hillary’s campaign should be very, very worried that Trump could be the eventual nominee. He’s the legitimate New Yorker and she’s the phony in every single way possible. She comes across as a reincarnation of Richard Nixon; unlikable, slightly paranoid, and with lots of things to hide. What can she possibly offer the majority of white males without a college degree that Trump can’t? If Joe the Plumber actually shows up to vote this November, it won’t be for Hillary.

* And it was as recently as 2010 that Google, in its first Superbowl ad, featured a touching sequence showing – through Google search queries – a guy and a girl meeting, falling in love, getting married (in a church!), and starting a family, with traditional gender roles all the way. It’s only been in the last few years that the SJWs have completely taken over within Google.

* In good times—say, the 1950s—every single candidate on both sides of the isle would be saying what Trump is saying about immigration. From hardcore socialists to free-market naifes, all would think it plainly obvious that illegal immigrants had to be en masse kicked out and the borders secured. Only Stalinist-type commie-idealogues or anarchist-libertarians (way more libertarian than Goldwater) would be clamoring for more immigration, more open borders, and amnesty. And neither of those would get a foothold in the primaries.

So a guy like Trump wouldn’t get much traction, because we’d have much more serious and sober leaders repeating what he was saying. But today, with both parties have unofficially but loudly soled out their own citizens, Trump is the only one making sense and showing loyalty.

Scary.

As Derbyshire said, immigration was the $100 bill lying on the floor that no one was picking up. Trump picked it up.

The question is why the other candidates on all sides ignored it—and continue to ignore it.

Posted in America, Republicans | Comments Off on Trump Vs Jeb!

NYT: Bush to “Woo Lindsey Graham”

Comments to Steve Sailer:

* “Woo” Lindsey Graham. ¡Jeb! would just have to wink at him and speak a little Spanish-accented English to have him swooning, I’m sure.

* “Mr. Bush immediately sent him a message, and the two men spoke on the phone later that day, when Mr. Bush made his pitch…”

So in this relationship Jeb Bush is the pitcher. I always suspected…

* “Mr. Bush immediately sent him a fruit basket, and the two men spoke on the phone later that day, when Mr. Bush made his pitch…”

* Clearly this is too ridiculous, even for GOP “elites”. My theory is that Yeb is secretly an iSteve fan, and is simply trying to feed Mr. Sailer some layups before he (Señor Bush) officially drops out of the race and fades into cucky oblivion.

* Of all the damn people… Lindsey Graham.

A true cuckservative with a face just begging to hit with a frying pan. Apparently he’s considered an expert on foreign policy and national security. No really. The same guy who said Saddam Hussein was a destabilizing force in Iraq.

The same moron who said this:

“If I’m president of the United States and you’re thinking about joining al-Qaeda or ISIL, I’m not gonna call a judge,” Graham said. “I’m gonna call a drone and we will kill you”.

Lindsey Grahamnesty needs to stay out politics. Jebito continues to be an unattractive presidential candidate everyday.

* Go look at Trump’s Twitter avatar pic. He’s squinting and surveying like a captain on deck during wartime.

Don’t know what Jeb!’s Twitter pic is but I’m absolutely positive it communicates softness.

* Throughout the campaign, Mr. Bush had made a point of texting Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina weekly, just to check in.

So Jeb is an eager beta in that relationship too.

On the morning Mr. Graham dropped out of the race for president, Mr. Bush was ready with the hard sell.

Shut up, Beavis. Sell IS a four-letter word though.

Mr. Bush immediately sent him a message, and the two men spoke on the phone later that day, when Mr. Bush made his pitch.

You mean he’s pitcher, not a catcher?

Mr. Graham has publicly said he has no plans to endorse anyone right now. Many believe that privately, however, he is strongly leaning toward Mr. Bush.

I hate that kind of innuendo. Who was doing what to whom?

* Graham is the favorite of the “Forget the Euphrates, On to the Tigris” big money neocons and defense contractors. Yes, they are few in number but all have very deep pockets and lots of influence. Don’t think for a minute that these donors don’t know all about Graham’s skeletons, but they have decided to see them as a plus since it means that they have “Purdy Mouth” entirely under their control.

For now ¡Jeb! may want to be able to distance himself from Dubya’s disastrous foreign policy but he also knows that he will still need to have access to lots of neocon and defense industry donor cash to win the general election.

If Yeb can somehow reemerge as the Establishment Republicans’ favorite Cuck of choice, or at least last cuck standing, then being able to count on Lindsay to throw a couple of cocktail parties on his behalf is a huge advantage.

Lindsay Graham is a pimp/gatekeeper to Neocon/Defense Contractor universe just as David Geffen is to the Hollywood Lefty/ Gay Jewish Mafia set.

If the thought of having to “Woo” Prissy Graham makes you nauseous , think of what having to slip into a hot tub with David Geffen would do to you.

* The GOP establishment still don’t understand the rejection of Neoconservatism by the wide population, its like they have no idea and despise their voters which is probably true.

Is there any surprise why Trump is being successful? He sides with the American people and not with the Plutocracy.

* I have a feeling that if Jeb woos Lindsey!, both men might have a chance to come out on top.

* Bush + Graham:

A drowning man begging to be thrown an anvil.

* Yup, its not about Graham voters but his powerful Neocon connections that Jeb really wants.

I’ve heard educated people say that during the Bush II administration there was crypto-war between Bush and Neocons, the Neocons wanted Bush to invade Syria, Iran and start a confrontation with Russia all which Bush II refused, the Iraq mistake was enough for him.

Obama has been Neocon friendly, his Syria and Russia policy is made by them.

* I fully anticipated this move. When Real Clear Politics ran a piece back on December 21 re Lindsey Graham’s withdrawal from the Republican race, I posted as follows: “I am looking forward to watching the mad scramble to secure Graham’s “base” of between 0 and 1% of Republican voters. I think we are in “lipstick on a pig” territory.”

* Yeb! Please! No!. An endorsement from Miss Lindsey would be the Kiss of Death!

* I’m guessing the “consultants” are thinking that Graham can somehow deliver the voters that re-elected him to the Senate. However, with the emergence of a candidate (Trump) who is actually willing to say what the GOP primary voters are thinking, the electorate’s mood has shifted sharply since then (from ” *sigh* I suppose” to “Oh, hey-ull NO!”) . Graham would have about as much chance of being re-elected if the election were this year as he would of being able to deliver those voters to Bush.

To demonstrate these chances, I’ll use this flamethrower and this snowball….

* My impression is the candidates other than Trump and Cruz have all but given up on the voters. The others are appealing directly to party leadership, in the hopes that Trump’s mouth or RNC machinations will sink him, at which point it’s a whole new ballgame, and whoever the elite finds most appealing will be handed the nomination on the floor of the convention, or something. It’s as if there are two races going on.

All I know is when I start reading up on the rules of the process, my eyes roll into the back of my head and my hatred of politics and political people surges. To imagine someone who takes pleasure, objective enjoyment, out of this shit! I would throw myself out a window if I had to spend time in a room full of these people.

Lindsey! may be the least appealing candidate to voters and other humans, but his policies make him the most appealing to the party establishment and donors. If not for his complete lack of rapport with voters, he’d be the RNC’s favorite. Bush wants his backers, for the Deep Campaign.

Posted in Immigration | Comments Off on NYT: Bush to “Woo Lindsey Graham”

English Vs Irish

Comments to Steve Sailer:

* Admittedly the Brits where total shits to the Irish during their histories but what no one ever mentions is the overwhelming disparity in population size when the idea of Catholic and Protestant meant something. Back in 1600 eeny weeney teeney Britain was facing a bunch of continental Catholic behemoths. Looks like roughly 5 million Brits and Scots facing roughly 50 million continental Catholics with the Germans living in the chaos of the Hundred Years War. So the tiny Brits had the Irish, the jewel in the Vatican’s crown, at their back, a real live Fifth column.
Britain’s later success as a world empire makes them appear to be Goliath stomping on poor Paddy but the Brit’s first entry onto the world stage was as a Protestant pipsqueak and they compensated accordingly, not giving the Irish any breathing room.

British Isles:
England in 1600 had 4.2 million; by 1650, 5.5 million. As of 1700, it was down to 5.2 million (the really big growth didn’t start until after 1750).
Scotland, 1 million in 1600, 1 million in 1650, 1.2 million in 1700.
Ireland, 1 million in 1600, 1.5 million in 1650, 2 million in 1700.

France: 20 million in 1600, 20.5 million in 1650.

Spain: 8.10 million in 1600; 7.1 million in 1650.

Portugal: 1.1 million in 1600; 1.2 million in 1650.

Austria-Bohemia: 4.3 million in 1600; 4.1 million in 1650.

Poland: 3.4 million in 1600; 3 million in 1650.

Switzerland: .9 million in 1600; 1 million in 1650.

Italian peninsula altogether: 13.1 million in 1600; 11.3 million in 1650.

Posted in England | Comments Off on English Vs Irish

Steve Sailer: Chernykh Sisters of San Bernardino Terrorism Penumbra Are Likely Subbotniks

Steve Sailer writes: As Raymond Chandler’s detective novels pointed out, spectacular murders give outsiders an excuse to snoop around in corners of society that may not have anything directly to do with the murder, but don’t otherwise get much attention. Last month’s San Bernardino terrorist massacre has shone a light on what Southern California in the 21st Century is becoming more and more like. So, more on the two Chernykh sisters from Russia, both of whom appear to have used marriage fraud to game the immigration system. From the Daily Mail:

They came in search of the American dream but nine years after Tatiana Chernykh arrived, she and sister Mariya have instead found themselves at the heart of a nightmare. …

So how did a pair of Russian sisters with close ties to Israel end up at the heart of the worst terrorist atrocity in the US since 9/11?

Daily Mail Online can now disclose the full story of the Chernykh sisters and their journey from a tiny Jewish village in remote south-western Russia to their role in the California massacre earlier this month.

Family: The Chernykh sisters Mariya (second from left) and Tatiana (right) are caught up in the aftermath of the massacre. Tatiana is married to Syeed Raheel Farook, brother of the gunman. While Mariya is in what the FBI says is a sham marriage with Enrique Marquez, the gunman’s neighbor who is accused of supplying the guns. Mariya’s real partner is Oscar Romero, a petty criminal (left). The sisters’ parents Valentina (center) and Anatoly (second from right) are from a strongly-Jewish Russian village and have a home in Israel …

Real relationship: Mariya Chernykh has two children – both born on US soil – with Oscar Romero. His immigration or citizenship status is unknown. One was born before and the other after her marriage to Marquez

Born to Anatole, 53, and Valentina, 51, in the 950-strong village of Vysokiy, the two appear to have been model students with Tatiana, now 31, achieving a silver medal for her achievements at school.

It is unknown if the family is itself Jewish and friends and neighbors were reticent on the subject when approached by Daily Mail Online in Voronezh.

From a brief search online, I’m picking up a sense that the village of Vysokiy was home to a Subbotnik community of Judaizing Christian peasants. The Chernykhs of Vysokiy are an old Subbotnik name. From the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress:

Subbotnik Jews as a sub-ethnic group
18.02.2011, Communities of Eurasia
Velvl Chernin

… Surnames of Subbotnik Jews are Russian. However, strictly limited sets of surnames and their geographic specifity allow members of a given group to identify the name-bearers as “ours” or “not ours”. For instance, for Subbotnik Jews of Ilyinka, the Voronezh Oblast, “our” surnames are Kozhokin, Matveev and Karpov, while for Subbotnik Jews of the settlement of Vysoky, the Voronezh Oblast, “our” surnames are Gridnev, Chernykh, Puzankov, Voronin, Konchakov and Yuryev. [Emphasis mine]

From The Forward:

Described as a “Judaizing Sect,” the Subbotniks (“Saturday people” in Russian) were Christian Russian peasants who dissented from Russian Orthodoxy and began to recognize Mosaic Law late in the 18th century, observing the Sabbath, keeping kosher and practicing circumcision.

Back to the Daily Mail:

Although both Chernykh parents are now thought to live in Beit Shemesh, a mid-sized city of 94,000 people in Israel, their eldest daughter chose to come to the US in the third year of her studies at Voronezh Pedagogical University.

She told her parents that she was taking part in a student exchange program although that claim has been disputed by one of her professors. ‘We did have a student called Tatiana Chernykh,’ said Lyudmila Solodovchenko, deputy head of the English language department. She was expelled for academic failures. And she was definitely not sent to America by us as part of a student exchange program.’

Nevertheless, what is certain is that by 2006, Tatiana was in the US – leaving her parents and sister Mariya, now 25, behind in Russia. On arrival, she met and married 46-year-old Peter Gigliotti, briefly moving in with him at his Richmond, Virginia home before relocating to California.

Gigliotti, a drifter who has moved from dead end job to dead end job and worked in a pizza restaurant while in Richmond, now lives in Portland, Oregon.

His sister Maria, 50, lives in a ramshackle home in Beaverton and, when approached by Daily Mail Online last week, insisted her brother, who has been living nearby since September, was guilty only of an error.

He was unavailable for comment, and she would not address the question of whether the marriage was a sham or not. ‘It happened many years ago,’ she said of the relationship. ‘It was a huge mistake.’

Meanwhile Tatiana, by now divorced, had moved to Corona, California where she met and married Syed Raheel Farook. …

But neighbors have offered up a very different picture of the couple’s life together and say the police are regular visitors to the house. The most recent visit, said 47-year-old Shery Medina, came on the Saturday prior to the San Bernardino shooting. She also told Daily Mail Online that the visit was far from being an isolated occurrence and pointed to another two incidents earlier this year. ‘There have been at least three incidents since January with the cops,’ she said. ‘Domestic violence. They argue. I’m like, ‘oh God the cops are there again’. …

For all Tatiana’s domestic troubles, recent years have brought her an extra source of support in the shape of her sister Mariya who arrived in the US in 2009.

Initially just intending to visit, she soon got a job selling mobile phone cases and found herself a boyfriend in the shape of 5’7” Romero, with whom she has a daughter.

Hoping to cement her immigration status, in November 2014, she married 24-year-old Enrique Marquez in a sham wedding and, until recently, paid him $200-a-month for the privilege.

‘It’s easy to check that Enrique Marquez is not her real husband. Mariya’s social networks show that her husband is called Romero, and they have a daughter,’ a source told Russian channel NTV.

They added: ‘The black market price on bogus marriages meant that Mariya needed to pay several thousand dollars to arrange the deal.

‘How could she know that her kind relatives that helped her cover the costs would turn into religious fanatics?’ …

Marquez is also thought to have helped Farook formulate plans for an attack in 2012 which would have seen the pair target the SR-91 highway from Riverside to Long Beach with pipe bombs and automatic weapons. …

Romero, who has remained at the couple’s home, also declined to speak when approached by Daily Mail Online on Saturday and asked about Mariya’s $200-a-month sham marriage to Marquez. The 33-year-old, who became aggressive after being approached, possesses a criminal record featuring multiple counts of DUI, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest.

Although Romero’s immigration status is unclear, Mariyah faces having her visa revoked, although with a child who is an American citizen – so-called ‘anchor babies’ – she will be able to fight any attempt to remove her.

Despite her close connections to terror, friends in Russia remain unwilling to countenance the prospect that the woman they knew could have had anything to do with the shooting. ‘There is no way that she [Tatiana] could have converted to Islam,’ Lyudmila Gridneva who once taught the Chernykh sisters history at the village school, told NTV.

‘Her parents live in Israel, and as you know relations between Arabs and Jews are…’

Comments:

* Subbotnik is a blanket term which covers a variety of beliefs and practices. Some subbotniks did not circumcise their male children and still recognised Jesus Christ as the messiah, only holding their services on Saturday and rejecting the Trinity. Others, like those who gathered in Vysokii and Ilinka, went the whole hog (if that expression is appropriate) and tried to follow Judaism faithfully.

* Man, I have dark thoughts toward scammer immigrants like these. They are all over the place in mostly coastal SoCal towns, some more inland.

Amazing how so many small shops in surfer towns along the PCH are now run by nasty gold chains immigrants. Easy to see that these are people who have spirited/lifted funds out of one country in order to launder them overseas.

* Judaizers have always been a opponent of Orthodox Christianity:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judaizers

The phenomenon of Gentiles following jewish practices is older than Christianity, there was the ‘God-fearers’:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/God-fearer

Tacitus also mentions jews being wealthy thanks to gentiles who abandoned their practies and started following jews when he wrote about the Roman-Judean War:

http://www.livius.org/sources/content/tacitus/tacitus-on-the-jews/

* In the Daily Mail article halfway down the page there is a closeup clear photo of the sisters and parents standing at a cash register in a discount store.

The mother has totally gentile euro facial features. Like a Soviet poster girl for raising the morale of the workers. Likely very hot when younger maybe a beauty queen. No non-white admixture.

The father is Asiatic or Semitic in appearance. Turkic?

This photo shows both daughters sporting the facial features of the father. The mother’s genes seem suppressed in their faces.

* For what purpose would the Mossad run mall kiosks in the Inland Empire?

I heard a more likely story recently from a guy who installs credit card processing systems in malls. He said there are entrepreneurs who like to hire young Israeli girls just out of their IDF stints to sell stuff in malls (presumably, these girls are doing this off the books, on tourist visas). I guess they are more confident than other girls their age and so take to retail sales better.

* Don’t understand all the hate and/or fascination with these two girls. They are not that pretty, especially the older sister who seems to have a hideously pronounced chin in one of her less staged photos. And the worst either seem to have done is commit immigration fraud- boo boo, when the President himself on behalf of all Americans wishes to apologize to you if you even CONSIDERED stooping to this sort of chicanery and your name ends with a ‘z’ (‘We have a long way to go still…’ Jeb: ‘Hispanic immigrants hardly ever commit this sort of crime. Told you it was an act of love!’)

Yeah, they’re vulgar and grubby by our standards in the first generation, but produce fully-assimilated if not spectacularly successful children in the next- seen a lot of dental technician Russian girls in my area- it’s a decent and productive living. Plus the gold chain-wearing, spade-nosed men might actually provide assistance in case you are ever polar bear’d – unlike the spindly but tasteful Portlandia hipster who’ll swear you must have said something racially derogatory to have so incited those yoofs.

‘There is no way that she [Tatiana] could have converted to Islam,’ Lyudmila Gridneva who once taught the Chernykh sisters history at the village school, told NTV.

And at least these people have the sense to be appalled at even the suggestion of Islamic conversion. Has anyone, even her own Mayflower-stock family, broached the topic of it perhaps being time to drop the chador to Mrs. Tamerlan Tsarnaev? Or will we soon see a follow-up human interest story on how she’s admirably raising Tamerlan’s baby to be true to its father’s heritage, regardless of the awful Trump-inspired backlash gripping the country (“the Boston Marathon bombing is the story of the bravery of love…)?

* This is brilliant reporting — a lone blogger scooping the NYT and WaPo due to the timidity of their staff in sensitive areas of the news. A very interesting perspective and good insights on contemporary America and its massive blind spots about immigration. Will the LA Times, at least, start to copy Sailer’s, maybe with a short interval to hide the fact? The NY Times is hopelessly lost in fantasy land on immigration-related issues.

* Mothers genes prevail in their pale almost sunburned body as shown in the beach-bikini photo with the Muslim husband.

Me saying that the mother prevailed in that these pale girls were highly desirable in today’s America and unfortunately to brown skin 3rd world adventurers….they had high “market value” and could have done much better but pregnancy intervened.

Seriously, these Russkie girls are paler and softer than most Hollywood babes …… so close yet so far away/ Hollywood talent agents need to do more combing through the local mall kiosks. They might even find a beautiful Circassian babe.

* Enrique should’ve married a Chinese national. I hear they pay more upwards of $50,000 for the process not including baggage that’s not yours aka stepkids. Then again the guy never seemed to bright.

Assume it take’s 3-4 years to complete until removal of conditions (roc) where the invader gets a 10 year green card. 6-12 months for adjustment of status. 2.5 years for the roc backed up by evidence such as joint returns, leases, utility bills etc. The simp was only going to make $7200-9600. Even a cheap East Asian was going to pay him $15k upfront.

* We can argue till the cows come home about whether “Messianic Jews ” are “really” Jewish. As best I can tell the ones who don’t want them to be accepted as “real Jews” are ALREADY on a payroll as a Pro Jew (e.g., rabbi), and don’t want too many other pigs’ noses rooting around in the feed barrel.

The rabbis in Israel have better stationary, being actual government apparatchiks – but the Euro/Anglo -spheres are where the serious money is.

About a dozen LARGE Messianic Congregations in Israel. They also aren’t at the center of (in this case, Christian) power in Israel. The Greeks & the Maronites are. Nice articles in the Hebrew press these past few weeks about Jewish Israelis visiting Aramaic villages, buying “christmas paraphenalia” as novelty gifts. We may someday see as many Hanukah Bushes in Jewish Israeli homes as we now see teenage players of American-football. Pub talk has it that the football leagues are a good way to network your way into the more elite infantry units. And the benefits of being in those circles are real, throughout your entire working career. Don’t forget that Golani Brigade only has room to accept 1 out of three of guys who pass the physicals.

Am I the only one who knows that Beit Shemesh is mostly a (slightly upscale) Anglo ghetto? And yes – their kids do register for the US Selective Service.

Anglos are a vanishingly small percentage of the Security Organs. And the Security
Organs are the only center of power in Israel. Anything else is window-dressing for the tourists from out-of-town.

Since about 2500 BC, Jerusalemites have made good money off of pilgrims. Pretty much like the Bahraini economy is mostly about renting alcohol & pussy to Saudi guys.

We all have our rice bowls, you know?

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The Intellectual Costs of Diversity

Robert Weisberg writes:

The quest for campus diversity seems to be everywhere–the website thedemands.org currently lists 75 schools where students are clamoring for diversity. Barbara Wilson, the interim Chancellor of the University of Illinois even called diversity central to the university’s mission and such embarrassing nonsense is typical. People familiar with today’s academy know full well why otherwise sensible folk have, after centuries of neglect suddenly discovered the lofty benefits of diversity—the threat of campus mayhem (see here regarding its alleged benefits). It is inconceivable that Ms. Wilson honestly believes that spending millions to hire black faculty enhances the university’s reputation for scholarship and teaching or that recruiting more academically challenged black undergraduates will improve classroom discussions. Such groveling clearly resembles big-city firms paying off the Mafia to keep the peace; in a word, extortion.

This is a costly enterprise: newly established faculty positions that can only be filled by blacks, more bloated bureaucracies whose only purpose is supervising affirmative programs, and more legal staff to obscure the university’s illegal racial preferences.

Unfortunately, such budgetary items are the least costly items in this crusade. Far worse, and almost invisible to non-academics is the intellectual price of diversification and these costs far exceed constructing diversity’s Potemkin Village. Put bluntly, interim Chancellor Wilson and her ilk willingly engage in a horrible trade-off of undermining intellectual excellence to placate those racial egalitarians who equate skin color with knowledge. A frank translation of her celebration of diversity is that skin color and genitalia outranks scholarly accomplishment.

Let me catalogue a few hidden intellectual costs. Most obvious are the thousands of smart undergraduate white males who grasp that setting aside faculty slots for the disadvantaged (including women) means that the already small number of academic job openings, particularly in the no-growth social sciences and humanities, will be even smaller. So, why waste a decade and thousands of dollars on graduate school to pursue a non-existent tenure track position or having to settle for a low-paying, no benefit adjunct post? Better to find employment in the private sector, think tanks or government or, if the life of the mind is an irresistible lure, specialize in diversity-proof fields, e.g., teach statistics. Think of these never-to-be-hired high IQ white males as collateral damage in the war to achieve “fairness.” Just as harmful is the narrowing of permissible scholarship and teaching. Rule Number One in today’s academy is never offend grievance groups and truth is no defense. A savvy careerist in the social sciences and humanities must relentlessly self-censor and just to be sure, avoid teaching potentially troublesome subjects (e.g., urban politics). This also includes scrutinizing in advance all assigned reading to insure that they do not even cite anything “controversial” such as The Bell Curve. A wise professor will become an expert liar, for example, with a straight face enthusiastically insist that crime is caused by poverty, racism, inequality etc. etc. regardless of the plain-to-see contrary evidence.

Then there’s risking being socially ostracized if one fails to accept the party line on diversity and inclusion. Trust nobody, not even would-be friends and forget about making jokes that could possibly offend some thin-skinned member of a protected grievance group. Further assume that nothing is eternally beyond the reach of the Thought Police—don’t even admit your opposition to affirmative action in German in an obscure German blog since this could be traced back to you and you’ll be forced to publicly humiliate yourself (and forget about your colleagues defending you). If you yearn for camaraderie and a decent social life, seek these pleasures outside the academy.

But of all the intellectual casualties in this diversification, the greatest loss is the honest give-and-take of intellectual life. These interchanges are among the great pleasures of the academy and diversity can kill this joy.

These are discussions that once occurred in faculty colloquiums, job interviews, graduate student dissertation presentations, informal “brown bag” lunches and anywhere professors assembled. Like playground pick-up basketball games, these exchanges can be bruising and participants typically show-off by conspicuously flaunting arcane knowledge or launching sarcastic killer asides. But, and this is critical, intellectual bravado ceases when the discussion ends and the unspoken norm is no enduring hard feelings. After all, today’s sharp-witted loudmouth is scheduled for next week’s weekly faculty seminar so he better not alienate colleagues. Moreover, as in the pick-up game, participants often socialize afterwards and all is immediately forgiven lest intellectual life deteriorates into vindictive cliques.

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Madison Jewish congregation supports settling Syrian refugees

I hope they settle the refugees in their neighborhood so that they can experience the joys of Islam first-hand.

Surprisingly, this Jewish congregation says nothing about the moral imperative to settle Syrian refugees in Israel.

This statement was approved by the board of Congregation Shaarei Shamayim, which holds services at the First Unitarian Society, 900 University Bay Drive in Madison:

Congregation Shaarei Shamayim, Madison’s Jewish Reconstructionist and Renewal community, voice our support for settling Syrian refugees in Wisconsin, and are prepared to offer our homes and sponsorship to people seeking refuge from violence, terrorism, and tyranny. Our rabbi, Laurie Zimmerman, has joined over 1000 rabbis in support of Syrian refugees. She has also been joined in our local community by clergy from other faiths supporting helping these desperate people.

The world is now facing the largest refugee crisis since the second World War. Yet many elected officials, asserting the interest of safety and security, have declared unwillingness to accept Syrian refugees or allow state support for their re-settlement. These declarations are based on erroneous or false premises, politicize a humanitarian crisis, and foster the xenophobia and racism against which our community has historically struggled.

T’ruah, the Rabbinic Call for Human Rights, which represents 1,800 rabbis from all streams of Judaism, released a statement opposing efforts to bar Syrian refugees.

Religious leaders nationwide have similarly called for welcoming the Syrian refugees. Statements were released last week by the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, the Anti-Defamation League, the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, and by HIAS – the global refugee protection agency of the American Jewish Community. Catholic and Christian leaders have, as well, voiced this position, through statements from the United Church of Christ, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Unitarian Universalist Association, the Alliance of Baptists, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services, and others.

We share in the disgust and horror at the acts of terrorism perpetrated in Beirut and Paris last week. The U.S. and people worldwide continue to be victimized by domestic and foreign terrorists. We must hold responsible those who commit such acts, and protect ourselves against them. At the same time – grounded in Torah and our Jewish historical experience as a minority often in need of protection, and guided by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights – we respect the human rights of all people. We have a moral obligation to uphold the dignity and the safety of those in desperate circumstances.

These refugees, whether they be Muslim, Christian, Yazidi or other, have fled the so-called Islamic State’s terror and reject its extremism. They have suffered violence and hatred at the hands of ISIS. Turning away refugees provides ISIS a propaganda tool and plays to their goal of removing any safe harbor for those fleeing. We must do better as Americans, as Jews and as human beings.

Our elected officials, and all of us, are right to be concerned about security. Here, however, political rhetoric outstrips reality. The truth is that U.S. screening for admission of refugees is the most stringent way anyone can enter our country, and Syrian refugees undergo additional scrutiny. The refugee program needs to be supported and expanded, while security might well be enhanced for other methods of entry that may pose greater relative risk, such as the tourist visa program.

We are a nation of refugees and immigrants. We reject fear and xenophobia. And we call on our elected officials to demonstrate our strength in the face of terrorism by welcoming those who flee from extremism and violence.

***

T’ruah, the Rabbinic Call for Human Rights, which represents 1,800 rabbis from all streams of Judaism, released a statement opposing efforts to bar Syrian refugees. It reads in part:

Our historical experience as Jews in the United States teaches us the consequences of letting our fears dictate our policies towards those seeking refuge. 75 years ago, as Jewish refugees from the Nazis in Europe desperately sought a safe haven, elected officials in the United States spoke about the threat of Nazi infiltrators arriving on refugee boats, and spoke out against letting in so many Jews. Similar rhetoric about Muslim refugees is being used today, and similar fears are being used as excuses for refusing refuge to Syrians …. Americans made the mistake less than a century ago of turning away refugee Jewish children and their parents, many of whom went to their deaths. Today, we see in the Syrian refugees the same need that we saw two generations ago among European Jewish refugees.

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Salon: No, Trump isn’t the next Hitler: But his real historical comparison is still scary

The elites are nervous. America has not had a populist and a nationalist this close to the presidency in at least a century.

Arthur Chu writes:

If I were still in a mood to make jokes about the Trump campaign I’d say the makers of “Allegiance” and “The Man in the High Castle” both owe Donald Trump money for free publicity.

The Philadelphia Daily News hailed Trump’s plan to ban all Muslim immigration–which would bring us back to the era of the openly racist Chinese Exclusion Act–with the barely-even-a-pun headline “The New Furor.” The New York Daily News, not to be outdone, showed Trump beheading the Statue of Liberty.

Prominent Republicans have been coming out of the woodwork to bash Trump for escalating Republican discourse about immigration from veiled bigotry to open bigotry. The First Amendment-defying concept of applying a religious test to immigration is apparently a bridge too far even for the Dick Cheneys and Lindsey Grahams of the world.

Twitter, of course, has been a-twittering nonstop. Jeff Bezos threatened to shoot him into space. J.K. Rowling weighed in, calling him a worse villain than Lord Voldemort. (A stretch, considering Donald Trump has not yet assassinated anyone nor created an army of mind-controlled slaves nor fused his soul to that of a giant man-eating serpent, though I guess we’ll see in 2016.)

All of this naturally leads to the question: If everyone hates him so much, why are we so worried about him? Ross Douthat points out we haven’t even held our first primaries yet; Trump has yet to win a single actual election. Nate Silver, our nation’s election oracle, recently implored the media to “stop freaking out” about Trump’s position in opinion polls as the “Republican frontrunner.” Trump gets a lot of attention, but not that much support–his overwhelmingly “high unfavorables” basically mean the nation is split between a minority that backs Trump and a majority that hates him but hasn’t decided whom they’d prefer as president instead.

As Silver says, “Nobody remotely like Trump has won a major-party nomination in the modern era”; for Trump to succeed, he’d have to beat the entire Republican Party apparatus lined up against him and thus prove that the party itself is ineffectual against a determined enough wealthy individual. People who’d like to think that the two parties are obsolete lick their chops at Trump’s headline-grabbing status for this reason, but for better or for worse that’s probably wishful thinking.

To put it bluntly, Trump isn’t Hitler, not because Trump’s views aren’t as personally odious as Hitler’s were but because Trump doesn’t live in Hitler’s Germany and, to be blunt about it, he doesn’t have Hitler’s balls. The Adolf Hitler who took power in 1933 was a man who’d previously taken politics seriously enough to lead an armed revolution against the state and be imprisoned for it. His party already had a paramilitary wing (the SA) of organized, uniformed thugs who seriously thought of themselves as a rival to the existing military. He rose to power in a country that saw itself as a desperate underdog, having lost a major war and been forced to make massive reparation payments that crippled the economy.

None of this describes Donald Trump. It’s impossible to imagine the effete reality-show billionaire at the head of a Beer Hall Putsch or going to prison as a martyr for his cause. His supporters are violent, frightening, boorish mobs but they’re nothing at all like an army, not even the ersatz army the SA were. And despite how ugly things have gotten in the United States during the War on Terror we are still comfortably the world’s wealthiest superpower; Weimar Germany would be lucky to have our problems.

No, as disgusted as I am that a leading candidate for president can mouth fascist slogans and trumpet fascist ideals in 2015, I don’t seriously believe the America is Germany in 1933 or Trump is Adolf Hitler.

That doesn’t mean I’m not scared.

Because there is an example of a country a lot like America in 2015 that had a candidate in mind much like Trump–an ultra-rich dilettante who seemed to treat politics like a show and shoot his mouth off without any concern for actually winning, who did indeed “freak out” the chattering classes by skyrocketing in popularity against all common sense.

That country is America in 1924, and that would-be candidate was Henry Ford.

Like Trump, Ford vacillated about which party he even belonged to but seemed none the worse for wear for his shifting allegiances–his personal brand outshining the brand of whatever party he belonged to. Like Trump, Ford’s popularity was blamed on mass media–in 1924 that was the “movie mind” overstimulated by Hollywood features; in 2015 it’s apparently the fault of the “social media mind” of self-sustaining Internet outrage.

Like Trump, Ford surged to national attention in 1924 because of the country’s deep disenchantment with the “serious” candidates, a sense that party politics was just a corrupt elite trading favors with each other–Trump, like Ford, somehow managed to be an “outsider” and to represent the “common man” despite being incredibly wealthy.

And, like Trump, Ford was beloved by his fans because he was perceived as a straight-talker, a truth-teller, someone insulated enough by his wealth he didn’t have to recite polite fictions. Among serious pundits of the chattering classes, an eccentric billionaire who goes on rants about the Protocols of the Elders of Zion or Barack Obama’s forged birth certificate has disqualified himself from being taken seriously for office. Among voters who hate and resent the serious pundits of the chattering classes, those “fringe” views only underscore the billionaire’s “outsider” credentials.

It may well be the case that Ford, had he not bowed out of running for the Republican nomination in 1924, would never have won a general election once enough people blasted the contents of his raving anti-Semitic newspaper the Dearborn Independent to a national stage–indeed, the Anti-Defamation League successfully shut down that newspaper with a boycott in 1927. It may be that historians are correct that Ford would never have made it that far into the election because, like most people who storm into presidential elections with no past political experience, he simply didn’t have the taste for politics.

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Anomalisa

This new movie is about a bored old married white guy who gets drunk late at night in a hotel in Cincinnati and supposedly finds meaning and purpose and joy in a one-night fling with a fan.

Vox: “Their romance is lovely. Even as you may continue to wonder about Michael’s wife and kid back in Los Angeles, it’s hard not to fall for Leigh’s Lisa as deeply and as quickly as Michael does. Lisa and Michael stumble around each other, eager and willing to please.”

I found the glorification of adultery disgusting. It subverts decency.

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We’re All Human Beings

Cleveland Jewish News: When Donald J. Trump announced a proposal for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until the country’s representatives can figure out what is going on,” criticism poured in.
The condemnation came swiftly from his fellow candidates, from national organizations – and from local rabbis.
One example was Rabbi Richard A. Block, senior rabbi at The Temple-Tifereth Israel in Beachwood and Cleveland, who took to Facebook with strong feelings about the New York business magnate’s proposal.
“In a political season when a leading presidential candidate advocates the exclusion of Muslims from our country, we understand anew the importance of the Torah’s commandments to ‘love your neighbor as yourself’ and to ‘love the stranger,’ and of Hillel’s teaching that ‘what is hateful to you, do not do to another. That is the whole Torah. All the rest is commentary. Go and learn,’” Block wrote. “How many radicals will (Trump) inspire to commit mass murder? If we remain silent in the face of Trump’s despicable proposal to ban Muslims from entering the U.S., we become complicit in it.”
For Rabbi Rosette Barron Haim, also of The Temple-Tifereth Israel, Trump’s proposal hit home – as in her family’s ancestral home in Turkey, where her family had many Muslim friends.
“I’m just very much aware that not all Muslims feel the same way about any given issue really,” Haim said. “It’s never good to lump all people, all minorities into any one category. I think that’s as true for Muslims as it is for people of Jewish background. That’s what they did in the countries where they wanted to persecute the Jews was that they made a generalization from an experience with perhaps just a few people and made policy that way.”
…Block said Jews might be extra sensitive to Trump’s proposal, recalling how Jews attempting to flee Nazism were kept out of the United States, including the famed case of the MS St. Louis, a ship with nearly 1,000 refugees forced to turn back toward Europe.
“I believe that the Jewish people’s experience with bigotry, persecution and rejection should stimulate special sensitivity to discrimination against other minorities,” Block wrote in an email. “We still recall with bitterness that the doors of the world were shut in the face of Jews attempting to flee Nazism. The vast majority of American Jews are the descendants of immigrants. The Torah reminds us more than 30 times that we were strangers in the land of Egypt.”
It’s hard to find a parallel for Trump’s proposal in American history – a time when an entire race or religious group was denied entry into the United States.
Certainly, Jewish refugees from Europe during World War II were denied entry due to a “nativist movement tinged with hysteria about hidden spies,” according to Jay Geller, Samuel Rosenthal Professor of Judaic Studies at Case Western Reserve University. Geller noted “active anti-Semitism” in the State Department and that officials had “carte blanche” to refuse German Jews. In that case, however, there were already quotas in place from the Immigration Act of 1924, which aided American efforts to prevent immigration of undesirables.
“America at that point simply needed to admit far more German Jews than the law stipulated they could and there was no widespread movement among non-Jewish-Americans to revise the quota or make an exception,” Geller said.
The idea of keeping out a seemingly dangerous minority then is not new. Still, his proposal is fairly unique in American history.
As a result, it’s also difficult to imagine how it would work. How would American authorities be able to figure out if someone was Muslim?
“The very first thing I thought was how would border control in this country even know who’s Muslim,” Geller said.
Geller said that the Germans solved that problem by putting a big red “J” on the passport of Jewish citizens, allowing other European countries like Switzerland to easily deny them. Most countries, however, including the United States, don’t put religion on one’s passport.
“I think the important thing is to remember that they’re all human beings,” Haim said. “We’re all human beings.”

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