Jewish Federation To Jewish Community Member Elections?

Pini Herman writes:

The Jewish Federation of Los Angeles Board of Directors is proposing to END pesky Jewish community member elections in a little publicized election (Jewish Journal 4/20, p.39) it is proposed that the largest group comprising the Jewish Federation, it’s membership, be disenfranchised, a result which is anti-democratic. Once the the public is removed from the discussion, it leaves a much smaller group of people with power and with fewer mechanisms of communal oversight.

Help organize Jewish Federation member voting on June 12. Contact Pini Herman at pinih@pacbell.net.

The essential small print reads:

“At the meeting, members will vote on proposed amendments to the Articles of Incorporation and Bylaws of the corporation. These changes will result in the elimination of membership from the corporation, and all rights of members will therefore be eliminated, including, but not limited to, the rights to elect directors, set the size of the board of directors, and amend the Articles of Incorporation and Bylaws.”

Please share this outrageous attempt to separate the LA Jewish community from it’s donated resources.

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Interview with Heather Mac Donald

John Derbyshire wrote in 2006 for National Review’s The Corner:

This is 3 years old but I hadn’t seen it before. It’s an interview that blogger Luke Ford had with one of my favorite conservatives, and one of the most interesting people around, Heather Mac Donald. Samples:

[On being a California girl]

Luke: “Did you like Los Angeles growing up?”

Heather: “I loved it. I spent a lot of time in the Santa Monica Mountains. The smell of the dry chaparral in the summer time and the eucalyptus and the wild mustard plants and the light… There are so many smells that I associate with the land around here, from both the natural Southern California environment and the urban forest that has been brought in over the century.”

[On being an automobile-phobe]

Heather: “Here the car culture is a big challenge for me.”

Luke: “Did you ever find your right-hand view mirror?”

Heather: “Yes, the Captain of the Ramparts Division adjusted it for me. I realized that part of the reason I haven’t been able to use it was that I had completely maladjusted it. I would look in it and see the side of my car…”

[On Hollywood]

Luke: “How has the dream factory, Hollywood, affected you?”

Heather: “Not at all. A lot of Hollywood kids went to my grammar school growing up. I’m completely unmoved by it. I don’t have a fondness for movies, which leaves me stranded when it comes to cocktail party chat, but I prefer language and books. Growing up in LA inoculated me against any sense that it is glamorous or special.”

[On being a Gentile in the world of American letters]

Luke: “Has anyone called you a shicksa and has it offended you?”

Heather: “It hasn’t offended me. I assume it was said affectionately.”

[On being irreligious]

“I don’t understand how people of intelligence can reconcile what I see as constant proof of divine indifference to human outcomes with a reverence for God. To me it’s a mystery.”

[On liberalism]

“Unless you think hard about political questions in our culture, you are liberal by default. You have to think your way out of liberalism.”

COMMENTS
[On her explorations in the underclass]

“I was in Watts the other night at an outreach by various ministers, lay people and police who were trying to create a political backlash against gang violence. … We went to recent homicide sites. The people I were with were chanting and preaching and trying to get people to join them. I walked around the housing project talking to people. They were very hostile. Obviously some white girl coming up to talk to them, I don’t expect them to greet me with open arms, or even welcoming. They seemed untouched by civilization. It was disturbing.”

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What’s Good For The Jews?

An Orthodox rabbi friend who’s been studying the Alt Right for a couple of years says to me: “I now notice that all Jewish arguments revolve around what is good for the Jews. More or less secular education? What is good for the Jews. Jews in positions of political power? What is good for the Jews? West bank settlements? What is good for the Jews. These arguments are not about abstract principles of right and wrong. They all boil down to different perspectives on group interests. My job as an Orthodox rabbi is to deepen Jews’ in-group identity. When I hear anti-semites such as Patrick Little and Tanstaafl, I’m now sympathetic to them because they are looking out for the interests of their group as I look out for my group. I never thought I’d be here. It’s weird.”

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Stereotypes Are Usually Accurate

Comments at Steve Sailer:

* I wonder if any of my fellow Unzions harbor nasty and unacceptable stereotypes about particular groups of people?

Well, if you do, chances are those stereotypes are accurate.

But, please, don’t take my word for it.

Stereotype accuracy is one of the largest and most replicable effects in all social psychology.

Don’t believe me? Read all about it here and here.

The hilarious part here is that actual research on stereotypes have found that they are true much more often than they are untrue, that they are very useful tools for understanding the world when you have limited information, and that when new information is obtained people cheerfully abandon the stereotype.

* Many years ago, as a first year student at a certain New England Ivy League professional school, the more senior student appointed to be the sort-of residence hall proctor in my part of the residence hall was an gentleman of African American heritage. I therefore assumed he was likely to be below-par academically, due to affirmative action, and an above-average risk for committing criminal mischief, due to ‘that’s how things are’ in the African American community.

I was not entirely shocked, therefore, when he suddenly disappeared from the residence hall mid-year — apparently stripped of his role after being arrested for beating his girlfriend, or something like that.

I must therefore admit that I never gathered enough evidence to validate or disprove the assumption I made about his academic record. Clearly, that makes me a terrible Racist or something.

One of my few black classmates at the same institution turned out to be the marijuana supplier to virtually the entire part of the student body that was into such things, so there’s that as well.

* The problem with trying to convince people that they need to discard their stereotypes is that eventually they get slapped good and hard with reality. So instead of learning to determine which people of a certain group clearly fit the stereotype and who the outliers are, we have too many people in active denial of reality who dismiss the utility of stereotypes and when that gets shattered they end up angry, bewildered, and ashamed.

I grew up going to schools with plenty of class and racial diversity in a large city, so by the time I was an adult I had no illusions about how different groups were likely to act, particularly lower class whites and blacks. In contrast, many of my coworkers – mostly liberals who had grown up in lily-white environments who had been raised to believe ‘we’ are all the same – after several years of living in DC would dispairingly admit after a few beers that they felt like after living there they had become incredibly racist after living up close and personal with the people they had been told were just oppressed versions of themselves. To once again recover their sympathies, they basically had to move back to places where they didn’t have to interact with the people they were supposed to care so much about.

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5 Tips for Recovering Without a 12-Step Program

Beth Leipholtz writes:

Here are a few pieces of advice for recovering without a 12-step program.

1. Find your tribe. I can’t stress enough how important it is to find peers who understand the journey you are on and who have been where you are. When you are feeling down or as if your sobriety is in jeopardy, you need to have people you can reach out to and talk it through with. These can be people you know in real life or online. There are so many resources on the internet and on social media for connecting with other people in recovery…

2. Use technology. Embracing technology is incredibly beneficial when it comes to recovery. Simply googling recovery resources turns up many results, including groups to join or blogs to read. There are various smartphone apps that can track your sober time, connect you to other people in recovery, and provide other helpful information. Many even deliver an inspirational quote each day. There are newsletters you can sign up for, readings you can relate to and learn from, chat rooms to talk with other sober people…the list goes on. The internet and technology in general are fantastic resources for those of us in recovery.

3. Have an outlet. It’s important for everyone to have a way to burn off steam, but it’s especially important for those in recovery. Chances are that if you are sober, you probably relied on a substance as a way of letting go, escaping, and as a place to channel negative feelings. In recovery, that is no longer an option. However, there are plenty of healthy outlets to choose from. Two of the ones I have found most helpful are writing and working out.

4. Find another program. Believe it or not, 12-step programs are not the only recovery programs out there for people struggling with substance misuse.

5. Share your story. This has been the best tool for my own recovery. There is something about telling your story to other people — and them telling their story in return — that makes you feel like you are holding one another accountable and sharing in both the successes and the struggles.

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