The former managing editor of the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles now lives in New York. She’s just launched AmyKlein.net.
She has a Modern Love column coming out in the New York Times Dec. 19. This one is not about me!
Here are some of her recent clips:
* Match.com — Are Your Friends Keeping You Single
Saturday. 3 pm. He walks east on Robertson Blvd and within two blocks he’s already outside of Torah Town. He passes a small Chabad and then a tiny Knesset Israel and then there’s no sign of Yiddishkeit.
The sun drops in the horizon.
He didn’t think his life would turn out like this.
At Hamilton High School, he walks west and eventually joins with National Blvd. He passes children playing roughly on the streets and wonders how many of them are criminally violent. This is an entirely different class of people from Beverlywood. They’re much rougher. They look less educated, less successful, and more indulgent. They’d punch him in the face if they knew what he was thinking so he doesn’t make eye contact.
He passes a group of winos. “Nice beard!” one says.
He thinks that these people are less inhibited than his own kind. They’re less constipated about talking to strangers. They don’t look at the outside world as the enemy to be debunked.
He could’ve waited for the end of the Sabbath and then driven to his Alexander Technique soiree but then he would’ve arrived two hours late.
He’s curious about the public dialogue with his teacher. Teach hasn’t been the same of late. He’s never seemed so vulnerable. Why? Teach is a master showman who’s taught the Technique thousands of times. This is his element. He knows he’ll shine. So why the long face?
What’s going on? Does teach also sense the setting sun?
Soon we’ll all fade to black.
During the presentation, he allows himself three public questions and then shuts himself down and guzzles Perrier alone in the kitchen.
Later, a friend says to a group, “You are so much more appropriate now than in your first three months.”
Still, he won’t go easily into that good night. He talks on and on about inhibition until his voice gives way and he takes the first ride home to light his menorah.
His best friend’s engagement party was tonight and he had missed it. She was once converting to Orthodox Judaism — they davened for years at the same shul — and now she was marrying a goy.
They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious. “Peace, peace,” they say, when there is no peace.
Notice that the Arab workshop gave her huge ovations. Most of the Arab-Islamic world is so pre-occupied with hating the Jews that it is useless to think they will ever build a decent society while holding on to such views.
These Arabs and Muslims hate Jews more than they love each other. They love death more than life. No wonder they are so backward and barbaric.
If you doubt me, let me ask you — would you like to live in Saudi Arabia or Libya or Syria or Egypt or Afghanistan?
Striking a defiant tone, journalist Helen Thomas, 90, said today she absolutely stands by her controversial comments about Israel made earlier this year that led to her resignation. But she stoked additional controversy with new remarks, claiming that “Zionists” control U.S. foreign policy and other American institutions. The local Jewish community strongly condemned her remarks.
“I can call a president of the United States anything in the book but I can’t touch Israel, which has Jewish-only roads in the West Bank,” Thomas said. “No American would tolerate that — white-only roads.”
Thomas, who grew up in Detroit the daughter of Lebanese immigrants, was in Dearborn today for an Arab Detroit workshop on anti-Arab bias. The Free Press asked her about her comments, which critics have said were anti-Israel.
“I paid the price for that,” said Thomas, a longtime White House correspondent. “But it was worth it, to speak the truth.”
“The Zionists have to understand that’s their country, too. Palestinians were there long before any European Zionists.”
Thomas claimed that “You can not say anything (critical) about Israel in this country.”
In a speech that drew a standing ovation, Thomas talked about “the whole question of money involved in politics.”
“We are owned by propagandists against the Arabs. There’s no question about that. Congress, the White House, and Hollywood, Wall Street, are owned by the Zionists. No question in my opinion. They put their money where there mouth is…We’re being pushed into a wrong direction in every way.”
On his radio show today, Dennis Prager talked about a song named “F*** You” nominated for Grammy Record of the Year.
“In the video, everyone in it was a black American. I just wonder if any other community would not find this a little disgraceful? I’m sure many black Americans do. If everybody there wore a cross, at least impersonating Christians, I think the Christian community would say something. This doesn’t represent us.
“There is an inner-city culture that the general society tolerates, does not condemn as anti-civilizational because of fear of being called racist, and that is racist because they would say it if anyone else did this, let alone nominate it for a Grammy award.”
“Barbarians always exist. The difference between a great civilization and a failing civilization is not the presence or absence of barbarians. Barbarians will always exists, but what matters is that the civilization condemns the barbarian. When the civilization honors the barbarian, we have gone from condemnation to toleration to adoration.
“I would not have talked about this song if it was just out there. That it was nominated for a Grammy… That the elite find this profanity-laced crap worthy of an award shows that the barbarians govern in the world of the elite, in the arts and education… The rot is at the head, not the tail.”
“If a bunch of kids with yarmulkes had a profanity-laced video, I would be very embarrassed as a Jew. I believe that would be true for any community.”
The House today approved a bill that would improve the safety and nutritional value of food served at schools — and expand the number of schoolchildren eligible to receive free and reduced-price meals.
The legislation, already approved by the Senate and expected to be signed by President Obama, directs the Department of Agriculture (USDA) to set new nutrition standards for all food served in schools — in lunchrooms and in vending machines. It also streamlines rules for federally subsidized school lunch and breakfast programs so that an estimated 115,000 more low-income students will qualify for free or discounted meals, which now go to about 62% of the 31 million students a day who eat school food.
Dennis Prager: “We are going to pay for more and more kids’ meals in schools in the continuing expansion of the welfare state. The state will take care of you. You don’t have to feed your children. The state will.
“If I were a parent now of a child that age, I would tell my child, don’t you eat one morsel of government-supplied food. What they are doing is undermining your mommy and daddy’s dignity by doing this. They want to undermine your mommy and daddy’s dignity because they believe that we are useless.
“The ultimate left view is that parents are there for biological reasons and for their vote. That is their entire purpose in life. To have intercourse, produce children, and then leave the scene so that the government can then teach your children, feed your children, and then do everything necessary for your children.”
“I am very aware of dignity and it is such an insult to parents — we know better how to feed your children. What does the parent do then? Get your kid on the school bus and then vote? What is the role of the parent? You don’t educate your kids anymore. You don’t feed your kids. Will the government provide clothing?”
In a Wednesday interview on BBC World News America, liberal FCC Commissioner Michael Copps told correspondent Katty Kay: “I think American media has a bad case of substance abuse right now….we are going to be pretty close to denying our citizens the essential news and information that they need to have in order to make intelligent decisions about the future direction of their country.”
As TVNewser reported on Thursday, after Kay asked about instituting a “Public Value Test” of media outlets, Copps replied: “What we’ve had in recent years is an aberration where we have had no oversight of the media. For years and years we had some public interest guidelines…they agreed to serve the public interest and that public interest to me right now is crying ‘news and information, news and information, news and information.'”
Despite seeming to endorse heavy-handed government regulation of news media, Copps legitimately criticized the lack of hard news coverage: “It’s a pretty serious situation that we’re in. I think American media has a bad case of substance abuse right now. We are not producing the body of news and information that democracy needs to conduct its civic dialogue, we’re not producing as much news as we did five years, 10 years, 15 years ago and we have to reverse that trend.”
Dennis Prager: “I have said since I studied the left at the School of International Affairs at Columbia University…of the deep totalitarian DNA in the left. Everybody has to fight parts of their nature. When you move left of center, you have to fight the temptation that you know better what people should do, read, think, feel and that you will therefore, knowing better, legislate what they do, how they keep their money, how much of their money they will keep, how their children will be educated and fed, we will ban toys in Happy Meals because we know better. You can give toys and you can give Happy Meals but you can’t give a Happy Meal with a toy.”
“It’s a lie that we have less access to information today than five years ago. I mean good information from all over the world. You can read the major German weekly Der Spiegel in English. You can read the major Israeli daily Haaretz in English.
“What is the major difference between today and five years ago? He doesn’t like the news.”
Friday, December 03, 2010 Radio Show
H1: F*** You
Prager H1: That’s the title of a song nominated for Grammy Record of the Year. The lyrics of the song are as deep as the title suggests. Gershwin, Cole Porter, Cee Lo Green. And, so a civilization declines… A FCC commissioner sounds like a Soviet commissar in an interview to BBC… The CT murderer says he welcomes death. How about next week? His defense attorney makes usual “death penalty makes us all murderers” argument. Pass the vomit bag.
Friday, December 03, 2010 Radio Show
H2: Happiness Hour: Hobbies
Prager H2: The more things in life that bring you joy, the happier you will be. Hobbies are a great source of happiness.
Friday, December 03, 2010 Radio Show
H3: Open Lines
Prager H3: Per usual, callers set the agenda. Issues raised include: how important is self-esteem; does Dennis use an electric razor; Allen and Dennis do a honey tasting; is it okay for a young son to buy his father a cigar as a gift; what’s so bad about saying “happy holidays”; what is the Old Testament attitude toward premarital sex.
On his radio show Wednesday, Dennis Prager said: A man needs most from a woman in a relationship is to be admired. Not loved. You love a puppy, but you don’t admire a puppy. You love your children, but you may or may not admire your children.
The reason the denial of sex is so terrible to a man is not primarily the biological deprivation, but he translates it in his mind as a lack of taking him seriously, a lack of admiration and love.
There is really only one thing that can not be overcome by most men in a marriage — being held in contempt by his wife.
My father was married to my mother for 69 years, 73 years together. Always, it was a sort of mantra that my father would say, ‘Your mother puts me on a pedestal. That’s what every woman needs to do for her man.’
The New York Times reports:
JERUSALEM — A fire raging in a northern Israel forest on Thursday has left at least 40 people dead, caused the evacuation of thousands of people, burned some kibbutz houses to the ground and prompted the Israeli government to call for urgent international aid in fighting the inferno.
A spokesman for the fire service in the area, Hezi Levy, said the fire was the biggest and deadliest in Israel’s history. Israel called on Cyprus, Italy, Russia and Greece to send firefighting planes, according to the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
At least some of the fatalities came when a bus carrying prison guards to a penitentiary to help in its evacuation got caught in the flames, according to a police spokesman…
Today (Thursday) is the first day of Chanukah, the Jewish festival of lights. Chanukah commemorates the miracle that occurred more than 2,100 years ago upon rekindling the sacred, seven-branched golden menorah in the Second Temple of Jerusalem after the Jews in the Land of Israel defeated and threw off the yoke of the occupying armies of the Syrian-Greek empire. The number 40 has great biblical-historical and mystical significance in Judaism.
The Syrian Greeks and their Hellenist allies among the Jewish upper classes tried to forcibly assimilate Judaism into Greek culture by outlawing, often on penalty of death, Torah-mandated Jewish observance of Sabbath, Rosh Chodesh (the monthly New Moon festival, which largely establishes the Jewish calendar and holiday cycle) and circumcision.
Interestingly, all three of the divine precepts that the assimilationist enemies of Torah Judaism sought to uproot are embodied in the observance of Chanukah itself: Chanukah is an eight-day holiday that begins on the 25th of the Hebrew month of Kislev. Because it is eight days long, Chanukah always contains within it at least one Jewish Sabbath and sometimes two; because it is eight days long and begins on the 25th of the month, Chanukah always continues into the next Hebrew month and thus contains within it the observance of Rosh Chodesh (of Tevet); because it is eight days long, the holiday itself symbolizes and represents the mitzvah of circumcision, which according to the Torah is ideally to be performed on the eighth day of the life of a newborn Jewish boy.
Now the State of Israel is in the theologically awkward position of asking Greece, Italy, Russia and Cyprus to extinguish a fire in the Holy Land on the first day of Chanukah.
No matter what turns out to be the proximate cause of this blaze — even if it is found to be arson — the faction-ridden Jewish people in Israel and around the world should contemplate the deeper spiritual significance of this event.
UPDATE from Israel: Aish.com Torah columnist Rabbi Ari Kahn, who lives in Givat Ze’ev in Israel, emails:
A neighbor and very good friend believes her brother who is an officer in the prison system was on the bus — she has not heard from him. Another brother went to the morgue to attempt to identify the body. I got a call late last night [asking] if the brother should put on tefillin in the morning, and when does [the period of quasi-] mourning start. Of course the answer is only after identification — he could still turn up in a hospital or somewhere else. So for us here this is very personal, but I find it amazing and uplifting that the pain is felt 10,000 miles away. [Then this:] Since we last communicated, the family was told that he was on the bus, but no identification has been made. Only 8 of the 40 have been identified. Those funerals are taking place before Shabbat. Now that they know he was on the bus, they have the status of “onen” [quasi-mourner before a burial; a man who is an onen does not put on tefillin].
Rabbi Kahn pointed out that the Torah reading on the first day of Chanukah (from Numbers 7) was about the first of the 12 days of dedication (chanukat) of the portable temple, or Tabernacle, in the wilderness. It was on that day (in Nisan in the springtime) that Nadav and Abihu, two sons of Aaron the High Priest, “went up in flames,” the rabbi said. They died after offering what the Torah calls “strange fire before the Lord.” That tragic, fatal episode itself is not described or mentioned in the Torah reading of Chanukah, however, but in Leviticus 10:
And Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took each of them his censer, and put fire therein, and laid incense thereon, and offered strange fire before the LORD, which He had not commanded them. And there came forth fire from before the LORD, and devoured them, and they died before the LORD. Then Moses said unto Aaron: ‘This is it that the LORD spoke, saying: Through them that are nigh unto Me I will be sanctified, and before all the people I will be glorified.’ And Aaron held his peace. And Moses called Mishael and Elzaphan, the sons of Uzziel the uncle of Aaron, and said unto them: ‘Draw near, carry your brethren from before the sanctuary out of the camp.’ So they drew near, and carried them in their tunics out of the camp, as Moses had said. And Moses said unto Aaron, and unto Eleazar and unto Ithamar, his sons: ‘Let not the hair of your heads go loose, neither rend your clothes, that ye die not, and that He be not wroth with all the congregation; but let your brethren, the whole house of Israel, bewail the burning which the LORD hath kindled.
FINAL UPDATE from Israel: Rabbi Kahn reports that the funeral of his neighbor’s brother who was feared dead, Rafi Alkaly, was to be held at 11 a.m. Sunday, Dec. 5, in Mt. Herzl Military Cemetery in Jerusalem. Baruch Dayan HaEmes — Blessed be The True Judge. May God console the Alkaly family among the other mourners of Zion and Jerusalem. The death toll from the fire now stands at 41.
Professor Yitzchak Kerem emails: Noah Flug briefed Knesset Committee for survivors this week. He noted as “punishment” for Russian employee corruption (went on for 16 years with oversight and possible collaboration from Sol Kagan, Edgar Bronfman, Israel Singer, Julius Berman,. Greg Shroeder, and many others including Avraham Biderman, Roman Kent, and others) Claims conference in NY canceled departments for new claims and article one and two. Only will give to commemoration and deal with art, property, etc. A major scandal which needs to be publicized. Now survivors all over the world must go through Israel office which often demands tremendous unnecessary documentation, or skewed office in Frankfurt. Survivors all over the world will be shafted due to past Claims conference corruption and misconduct. Currently looks as if Claims came out well because collaborated with FBI, but they were more active in cover-up than problem solving and transparency.
Dennis ran the JewishJournal.com for a couple of years.
He blogs yesterday: As you probably already know, I’ll be joining AOL’s Patch.com next week to build, run and grow Los Angeles’ new Brentwood.Patch.com, which I plan to launch before the end of the year.
This means I need Brentwood-located and Brentwood-conversant bloggers/freelancers/columnists/critics/reporters to write about sports, arts, food, schools, health, business, government, roads, politics, culture, films, real estate, local business, restaurants, playgrounds, parking and more. Everything you’d want in a “hyperlocal” news source, we’re gonna have it. Videos! Photos! Cartoons! What do you have to add to the community conversation?
This may not be for you but it may be for yours. Patch.com does not pay scads, but it pays fast, and a bird in the hand, etc. Recent grads? Bloggers? Opinionated person? Prep sports freak? We want you!
If you’re in Brentwood, or have friends in Brentwood, please forward them this blog post and ask them to email me, [email protected] with a brief bio and pitch.
Here are my recent contributions to local Patch.com sites: — check ’em out and you’ll see the kind of stuff we’re looking for. Videos, too!
