* This week’s Torah portion according to Wikipedia: “The parashah reports God’s commands to bring olive oil for the lamp, to make sacred garments for the priests, to conduct an ordination ceremony, and to make an incense altar.”
* The Sanctuary appealed to all five senses. Judaism has nothing like it today in creating a visceral and compelling road to God. Judaism is poorer for not having the Third Temple.
* Casey:
* “Splashing blood” as conferring authority & sacredness. Heart as the oldest metaphor. Russians as goy-resistance.
* We should do a re-write of Exodus where Aaron is a “questioning bisexual character.”
* This parasha is about the rituals and the priests who help people to get closer to God. What do you do to get closer to God? As an addict, you are either getting closer to God or getting closer to your disease. Do we still need priests?
* Every detail is prescribed to reduce the chances of Israel lapsing into paganism. You couldn’t bring in your own incense into the Sanctuary. That was a capital offense.
* There was no role for women to work in the Sanctuary because that would wreak havoc by creating sexual tension.
* The olive oil for the menorah must be pure “without any admixture of a foreign substance.” According to Artscroll: “This requirement of absolute purity is a fitting prelude to the selection of Aaron and his sons as Kohanim, for they, too, must remain pure and separate from the rest of the nation.” What about a goy nation’s population? Is it made stronger with substantial admixtures of foreign substances? Is a goy nation 99.4% pure white more of a threat to Jews than American goyim who are about 60% pure white?
* The Jewish priesthood is hereditary. It is genetic. Jewish priests have a distinctive genetic code. You can’t convert to being a priest nor can you be elected.
"Likeness leads to liking," said the study's author, J. Philippe Rushton, professor of psychology at the University of Western Ontario. "People have a need to identify and be with others like themselves ('their own kind'). It is a powerful force in human affairs."
Rushton anchored the human preference for similarity in the evolutionary psychology of altruism, which suggests that favoritism toward kin and similar others evolved to help replicate shared genes. In-group loyalty is almost always seen as a virtue and extension of family loyalty. This explains why ethnic remarks are so easily taken as "fighting words."
The paper described the group-identification processes as innate–part of the evolved machinery of the human mind. Even very young children make in-group/out-group distinctions about race and ethnicity in the absence of social learning.
Sociologist Linda S. Gottfredson wrote: "Humans are not promiscuous altruists, of course, but favor persons genetically similar to themselves."
Brenda Walker wrote: "We all prefer to be around others who speak our language, share our values and understand our jokes. Human community is based upon similarities, not differences. Wouldn’t it be better to develop public policy on the basis of human nature as it really is?"
Psychologist Richard Lynn said in 1989: "Racial and ethnic conflict is occurring throughout the world—between Blacks and Whites in the United States, South Africa, and Britain; Basques and Spaniards in Spain; and Irish and British in Northern Ireland. These conflicts have defied explanations by the disciplines of sociology, psychology, and economics…. genetic similarity theory represents a major advance in the understanding of these conflicts." (pg. 534)
American biologist E. Raymond Hall noted that "two subspecies of the same species do not occur in the same geographic area." This rule applies to people. "To imagine one subspecies of man living together on equal terms for long with another subspecies is but wishful thinking and leads only to disaster and oblivion for one or the other."
Psychologist Raymond Cattellsaid: "Whenever a nation has been forcibly put together from differing races, we find a social life unnecessarily disjointed, weak, and feverish. There are thousands of misunderstandings, produced by individuals working for different goals in different ways and at different speeds."
For Homo sapiens, inclusive fitness theory goes well beyond ‘kin’. As William Hamilton hypothesized, genes can increase the probability of their own survival by bringing about the reproduction of not only family members with whom they share copies, but also of any individuals with whom they share copies. Research with Hamilton’s theory on people is less well known and remains controversial. This review shows: (1) spouses and close friends assort on blood groups and that similarity predicts fertility; (2) twin and adoption studies find genes rather than upbringing cause people to positively assort; (3) phenotype matching is more pronounced on more heritable items within sets of homogeneous traits; (4) bereavement studies find grief is greater following the death of a more similar co-twin or child; (5) studies of face perception find people prefer and trust those who look like them; and (6) DNA variance within and between ethnic groups is equivalent to that within and between families.
Kin-selection theory predicts that animals increase their fitness by allocating more cooperation to kin than to non-kin. Hamilton (1964) showed that altruism (or, conversely, reduced aggression) is favored when rb – c > 0, where r is the genetic relatedness between two individuals, b is the (genetic) fitness benefit to the beneficiary, and c is the fitness cost to the altruist. However, to benefit kin over non-kin, altruists must be able to detect genetic relatedness. Mechanisms proposed for this to occur include familiarity, imprinting on self or others, and innate feature detectors that work in the absence of learning…
A study of 263 child bereavements found that: (1) spouses agreed 74% of the time on which side of the family a child ‘took after’ the most, their own or that of their spouse, and (2) the grief intensity reported by mothers, fathers, and grandparents was greater for children who resembled their side of the family than for children resembling the other side of the family…
Several studies have found that people rate faces as more attractive when they resemble their own. Platek et al. (2002) morphed people’s faces with those of toddlers and asked questions such as ‘Which one of these children would you like to spend time with?’ and ‘Which child would you adopt?’ People responded more positively toward children’s faces that had been morphed with their own. During debriefing, the participants expressed surprise that any morphing had occurred. DeBruine (2002) found people trusted a stranger’s face more when it had been morphed with their own than when it was left unchanged…
The pull of genetic similarity does not stop at family and friends. Malat & Hamilton (2006) found that people prefer same-race health providers and perceive them as more trustworthy. Putnam (2004) found that the more ethnically diverse a community, the less likely its inhabitants are to trust others, from nextdoor neighbours to local governments.
Inclusive fitness theory has been used to explain why members of ethnic groups move into the same neighbourhoods, join together in clubs and societies, and are prone to develop ethnocentric attitudes toward those who differ in dress, dialect, and other appearance…
In retrospect, it is not surprising that people are able to detect and prefer those who resemble themselves. Similarity, whether actual or perceived, is one of the most important factors in human relationships. It is more surprising to find just how fine-tuned the recognition process can be. The studies reviewed above show that the preference for similarity occurs within ethnic groups and within families and on the more heritable items from within sets of related traits.
Genetic Similarity Theory extends Anthony D. Smith’s theory of ethno-symbolism by anchoring ethnic nepotism in the evolutionary psychology of altruism. Altruism toward kin and similar others evolved in order to help replicate shared genes. Since ethnic groups are repositories of shared genes, xenophobia is the ‘dark side’ of human altruism. A review of the literature demonstrates the pull of genetic similarity in dyads such as marriage partners and friendships, and even large groups, both national and international. The evidence that genes incline people to prefer others who are genetically similar to themselves comes from studies of social assortment, differential heritabilities, the comparison of identical and fraternal twins, blood tests, and family bereavements. DNA sequencing studies confirm some origin myths and disconfirm others; they also show that in comparison to the total genetic variance around the world, random co-ethnics are related to each other on the order of first cousins.
Most theories of ethno-political conflict and nationalism focus on cultural, cognitive and economic factors, often with the assumption that modernisation will gradually reduce the effect of local antagonisms and promote the growth of more universalistic societies (Smith 1998). However, purely socio-economic explanations seem inadequate to account for the rapid rise of nationalism in the former Soviet Bloc and too weak to explain the lethality of the conflicts between Tutsis and Hutus in Rwanda, Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs in the Indian subcontinent, and Croats, Serbs, Bosnians and Albanians in the former Yugoslavia, or even the level of animosity between Blacks, Whites and Hispanics in the US…
Patriotism is almost always seen as a virtue and extension of family loyalty and is typically preached using kinship terms. Countries are called the ‘motherland’ or the ‘fatherland’. Ethnic identity builds on real as well as putative similarity. At the core of human nature, people are genetically motivated to prefer others genetically similar to themselves…
In 1964, evolutionary biologist William Hamilton finally provided a generally accepted solution to the problem of altruism based on the concept of inclusive fitness, not just individual fitness. It is the genes that survive and are passed on. Some of the individual’s most distinctive genes will be found in siblings, nephews, cousins and grandchildren as well as in offspring. Siblings share fifty per cent, nephews and nieces twenty-five per cent, and cousins about twelve and a half per cent of their distinctive genes. So when an altruist sacrifices its life for its kin, it ensures the survival of these common genes. The vehicle has been sacrificed to preserve copies of its precious cargo. From an evolutionary point of view, an individual organism is only a vehicle, part of an elaborate device, which ensures the survival and reproduction of genes with the least possible biochemical alteration.
‘Hamilton’s Rule’ states that across all species, altruism (or, conversely, reduced aggression) is favoured when rbc40, where r is the genetic relatedness between two individuals, b is the (genetic) fitness benefit to the beneficiary, and c is the fitness cost to the altruist. Evolutionary biologists have used Hamilton’s ‘gene’s eye’ point of view to carry out research on a wide range of social interactions including altruism, aggression, selfishness and spite. The formulation was dubbed ‘kin selection theory’ by John Maynard Smith (1964) and became widely known through influential books such as The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins (1976) and Sociobiology: the New Synthesis by Edward O. Wilson (1975).
* Reading Mark Twain’s 1899 essay “Concerning the Jews,” I wax nostalgic for the free speech of that time. People felt free to engage in stereotypes, even negative ones.
Mark Twain: “By his make and ways he is substantially a foreigner wherever he may be, and even the angels dislike a foreigner.”
Posted inTorah|Comments Off on Torah Talk: Parasha Tetzaveh (Exodus 27:20–30:10)
Anti Semitism has never left.It is constant. I walk around with my husband and I hear people utter "dirty Jew" under their breath. #weliveithttps://t.co/2etwvWHbiF
So his hypothesis is, if Muslims don't see more hijabs and beards on tov they will resort to beheading Jews and christians? Ummmmmm…… 🤔 https://t.co/C4nfB3e5Rc
In November 2004, Jameson was diagnosed with skin cancer. Though surgery removed it, she miscarried shortly after the diagnosis. She was unable to conceive again with Grdina, even with in vitro fertilization. Jameson said the in vitro process “wasn’t a good thing for me”; she gained weight and did not get pregnant. According to Jameson, the stresses of the cancer plus infertility led to her marriage’s collapse.[142] In August 2006, Star magazine and TMZ.com confirmed with Jameson’s publicist that she and Grdina had separated.[143][144]
In October 2006, it was reported that Jameson began dating mixed martial artist and former UFC champion Tito Ortiz,[145] whom she met on Myspace.[146] Ortiz canceled a November 12, 2006 appearance as the guest of honor at the United States Marine Corps birthday ball at the Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in San Diego, when the Corps refused to let him bring Jameson as his guest.[147][148] On November 30, 2006, in an interview on The Howard Stern Show, Ortiz stated that he was in love with Jameson, that she was no longer acting in pornography, and that they were in a monogamous relationship.[149] On December 12, 2006, Jameson filed for divorce from Grdina.[150] She introduced Ortiz and talked about their relationship at the 2008 AVN Adult Movie Awards while she was presenting an award. She also made brief appearances on two episodes of The Celebrity Apprentice to help Ortiz on the tasks assigned in those episodes.
Jameson announced in August 2008 that she and Ortiz were expecting twins in April 2009.[151] On March 16, 2009, Jameson gave birth to twin boys, Jesse Jameson and Journey Jette.[152][153] Jameson and Ortiz split up in March 2013. Ortiz was granted full custody of the twins.[154]
Jameson’s father, Laurence Henry Massoli, died on October 2, 2010, after suffering complications from triple bypass surgery.[155][156]
As of 2014, Jameson has undergone extensive tattooing, almost completely covering both of her arms in sleeve tattoos.[157] In 2013, self-proclaimed socialite and writer Britney Markham became Jameson’s personal assistant after having met on Twitter. In a 2014 interview with LA Weekly, Markham claimed that Jameson would make requests for drugs. Markham posited that the pills of choice were Xanax, Ambien and Suboxone along with alcohol. At the same time, Markham denied that Jameson had been taking Oxycodone, in spite of previous rumors. Markham stated that she was assaulted and battered by Jameson following an incident in a hair salon in Los Angeles in 2013 when Jameson punched Markham in the stomach with a brass knuckles iPhone case. The blow was so severe, Markham claims she vomited blood and was hospitalized.[157]
On August 5, 2016, Jameson announced that she and her Israeli boyfriend, Lior Bitton, were expecting their first child together.[158]
On November 11, 2016, Jameson announced on her Twitter feed that she completed her conversion to Orthodox Judaism with a Haredi rabbinical court in Upstate New York. Having been raised Catholic,[18] in June 2015, Jameson announced that she was converting to Judaism, in order to marry Bitton.[159][160] In October, an Israel Channel 2 reality television series was announced, which would document Jameson’s conversion.[161]
Political views
After viewing undercover videos of chicken production, Jameson agreed to do a short video for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals as part of the group’s campaign against KFC’s treatment of chickens.[162]
Jameson supported Democrat Hillary Clinton in the 2008 United States presidential election,[163][164] but Republican Mitt Romney in the 2012 United States presidential election, stating: “I’m very looking forward to a Republican being back in office. When you’re rich, you want a Republican in office.”[165] In late November 2015, Jenna made multiple tweets showing support for Donald Trump as the next president of the United States.[166]
Legal issues
On April 26, 2010, Ortiz was arrested for felony domestic abuse at the couple’s Huntington Beach, California home.[167] Jameson was photographed afterward that day with a bandaged arm,[167] amid accusations by both parties against each other, with Ortiz accusing Jameson of being erratic and addicted to OxyContin, while she alleged that he was abusive. Since the incident occurred, both parties have recanted these allegations that were made toward one another, though as of April 29, 2010, the investigation by the police department remained open.[168]
On May 25, 2012, Jameson was arrested in Westminster, California and charged with three misdemeanor counts for driving under the influence of alcohol or other drugs, driving with a blood-alcohol level over the state legal limit, and driving on a suspended license after her Range Rover struck a light pole. She initially pleaded not guilty to the charges, but later changed her plea to guilty. She was sentenced to three years of informal probation, ordered to pay $340 in fines, and participate in a Mothers Against Drunk Driving victims’ impact panel. The charge for driving without a valid license was dismissed.
Posted inConversion|Comments Off on Jenna Jameson Converts To Orthodox Judaism?
My first thought whenever I feel my identity is underepresented on T.V. is to run away to Syria and declare jihad on the west. pic.twitter.com/scgQO1XBOz
* I believe you’re underselling Mr. Ahmed. In his “Girls” role, he had to play a popular surfing teacher/DJ in the Hamptons. That was the easy part. The harder part was he also had to feign sexual attraction to the star/writer/director of the show. He also had to utter the words (not joking) “Man, that’s a lot of p***y hair down there.” (Like Lion of the Blogosphere, I watch so you don’t have to.) I say give him his Emmy now
* How sad – he clearly is just frustrated that the UK movie industry is too small to make use of only average talent with non-British features, so he doesn’t have the career he feels entitled to. So he has to go full “ISIS” in his explanation – the trouble being, you never go full ISIS if you want people to believe you.
* Yes, rent-seeking — and extortion. As in, “if you don’t put us in your shows, we’ll blow your legs off and leave your people bloody and screaming in your streets at random intervals.”
Translated even further, every group of people essentially threatens every other with destruction if they don’t get living space and the chance to impose their will.
People suck, and we all need our own cell walls and sovereign organs in Earth’s body in which to perform our functions. That’s called nationalism, and its the best.
i.e. “Good fences make good neighbors, so get the hell off my lawn!”
* We often hear this argument. Because of X (travel ban, desecration of the Koran, not being hired to play James Bond, etc.) many muslims will become terrorists. Therefore we ought not to do X.
It seems to me a more rational argument would be: Anybody who might become a terrorist because of X is not somebody we want in our country.
* You know, if I were a member of an immigrant group that dragged on my host society so much that even though it was still relatively minor in size and hadn’t been present in any serious numbers before man walked on the moon, that being on television in proportion with my groups size and importance would cause me to immediately become a jihadi sympathiser, I’d be, like, apologetic or something. Yet this guy and all the others never are.
I guess Trump is gunna cause a wave of Mexican and East Asian terrorism. What with his harsh language and relative lack of those groups on US TV. There can’t be any other component to this alleged phenomenon.
Also I like how Riz Ahmed doesn’t get that all his success is down to being a Pathan in the West. He’d never get much work if he was his white equivalent or trying to work in Pakistan or India. That he doesn’t get it is just too good. Indeed, just like Diego Luna, it is the problems of this group and their drain and subsequent generation of resentment that propels him (The Pakistani underclass doesn’t furnish a lot of talented thespians, there isn’t a lot of good Hispanic talent either, judging from the quality of Hispanic actors on US productions.) in a Hollywood desperate to score diversity points.
Posted inDiversity|Comments Off on “Riz Ahmed Warns Lack of Diversity on TV Will Drive Young to ISIS”
(JTA) — The Jewish Theological Seminary joined other Jewish Conservative groups in a U.S. Supreme Court appeal against a presidential move that allows schools to decide who may enter gender-segregated bathrooms.
On Thursday, JTA wrote in a statement that it has joined an amicus brief designed to uphold the “rights of transgender students to use public school restrooms consistent with their gender identity.”
The March 2 appeal follows the decision last month by the administration of President Donald Trump to roll back guidelines issued by his predecessor, Barack Obama, ordering schools to allow transgender students to use bathrooms and locker rooms matching their perceived gender identities.
“JTS is compelled to act in the face of state and federal actions which undermine the Jewish principle of human dignity,” the organization wrote in the statement about its joining the amicus brief.
Other signatory bodies include the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism and the movement’s Rabbinical Assembly, the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association and College, and several Christian bodies including the Unitarian Universalist Association and the General Synod of the United Church of Christ.
“In the Jewish tradition, public humiliation is tantamount to bloodshed,” JTA Chancellor Arnold Eisen wrote in the statement. “We will not stand idly by the blood of our fellow human beings. Laws such as the one at issue in the Supreme Court case have the effect, if not the purpose, of publicly humiliating transgender students by refusing them access to facilities consistent with their gender identities.”
The reason that electrical power and air travel don’t fail every time they get crowded is that we raise prices to manage demand. If things cost more, people use less of them. We all accept that airline tickets are more expensive during the holidays. And yet we miss that this very same, simple system of pricing could solve our congestion problem. Roads are the only piece of infrastructure we allow to consistently fail due to overuse.
Since 2003, cities across the country have been experimenting with something called “dynamic tolling” as a traffic solution. This entails adding what are called High-Occupancy/Toll (HOT) lanes on freeways. In a HOT lane, carpools drive for free, while solo drivers have to pay. Tolls are usually collected via a transponder, without ever having to slow down. Two of these experimental HOTs are right here in Los Angeles on the 110 and the 10 freeways.
In these HOT lanes, congestion is basically a thing of the past. On one highway in Miami, for example, average speeds went from 20 mph to 62 mph. On a Minneapolis road, speeds of 50-55 mph are maintained 95% of the time. Here in Los Angeles, average speeds on the 10 and 110 are 45 mph in the general purpose lanes and 65 mph in the HOT lanes. And the free flowing lanes are benefiting transit riders, too. Transit usage jumped 10% following the opening of the 10 and 110 ExpressLanes. Despite a poor, under-publicized rollout by Metro, these facilities have created far more traffic relief than the 405 widening at a fraction of the cost.
Dynamic tolling works by varying the price of the toll lanes by time of day. It costs more when traffic is typically busy, and less when fewer people want to use it. Prices can range from $0.50 to around $8 per trip.
A free-flowing road also carries more cars than a congested road, so by keeping things moving, the price actually increases the capacity on the road. Minneapolis’ HOT lane, for instance, carried 33% more cars than it did when it was free.
The system works because when prices go up, it sends a signal to drivers that there are lots of other cars on the road. Just as with airfare, people respond to these signals.
People have more flexibility in their drive times than you might imagine. Roughly half of peak-hour trips are not commutes to work or school. With HOT lanes, when prices are high, people adjust accordingly. If it’s worth it, they get in the lane and save time. If they don’t want to pay, they have that most American of options — choice: They could use the unpriced lanes, go at a different time, carpool, or take transit to avoid the cost.
Experts have pointed to tolls as a traffic solution for decades, yet building political support for road fees continues to be a challenge — the most common complaint being: “Oh, so only rich people can drive?”
This critique ignores the fact that working Americans often suffer the most severely from the impacts of poor mobility. Working-class parents who are late to pick up their kids from day care, for example, often pay severe financial penalties. Having the option to reach their destination quickly could actually save them money. In fact, experience with dynamic tolling in the United States has shown that people of all income levels use these lanes. This objection also ignores just how inequitable and dysfunctional our current system is. Tolls may disproportionately burden the poor, but so do sales taxes, gas taxes and every other way we pay for roads.
Posted inLos Angeles|Comments Off on LAT: There’s only one way to fix L.A.’s traffic, and it isn’t Elon Musk’s tunnels. We need tolls — lots of them
When you go through the day, how often are you hurt and inconvenienced by demographics likely to vote for Trump vs unlikely to vote for Trump. Most of the bad behavior I endure is by people in demographics unlikely to vote for Trump.
Y'all know how to get a social worker in NY barred? I'm being stalked and harassed by a white nasty white woman Francesca Rossi in NYC.
Know any good lawyers? Need to stop this nasty/racist #whitegirl I dated who sent a bomb threat in my name & wants me to be raped in jail. pic.twitter.com/B1IU0RkNCZ
Juan Thompson, the suspect in the Jewish Community Center bomb threats, had a very active Twitter page in which he posted a series of incendiary tweets, calling capitalists “blood suckers” and retweeting Hillary Clinton criticizing the president for not speaking out fast enough on hate crimes.
He criticized Donald Trump, calling him a “coward” and accused the president of wanting to ethnically cleanse Chicago. However, the criminal complaint alleges that Thompson called in bomb threats to Jewish Community Centers as part of a campaign of harassment against a woman he had dated. He had harsh words for the Democratic Party too, accusing it of being boring, flaccid and useless.
He also criticized white people (writing that they have “no shame”) and their “vile ilk” and the “white media.”
He wrote: “You show me a capitalist, and I’ll show you a bloodsucker | Director of Communications–Gateway Housing Foundation |” on his Twitter profile.
He also posted on the bomb threats themselves.
Thompson, 31, was arrested in the string of threats against the centers, which had led to commentary about a troubling rise of anti-Semitism in America, as well as denunciation of it by Donald Trump in his speech to Congress.
.@AaronKatersky confirms 31yo Juan Thompson has been arrested by FBI in connection to the rash of bomb threats to Jewish Community Centers.
A senior editor for the Atlantic says Thompson was fired by the Intercept.
The Juan Thompson who was arrested for making JCC threats appears to be the same one fired from the intercept for manufacturing stories pic.twitter.com/Y6wgKEIhYa
What does Thompson’s Twitter account show? It shows a series of angry tweets about politics, white people, and other topics. Here’s a sampling of some of them:
Thompson Claimed He Was Set Up By a ‘White Woman’ He Dated
Heavy has deleted the woman’s name. Thompson pinned this tweet to the top of his Twitter page. However, the complaint alleges that Thompson was harassing the woman for months and made the bomb threats to try to set her up for falsely accusing him of making them.
* A lot of people have talked about how the rise of Trump/Bannon/etc has emboldened the fringe of bigots inclined to beat up minorities, burn down mosques, vandalize Jewish graveyards, etc. And that seems sort-of plausible–we’re a big country with our share of wackos, after all, and some of them are on the far right. But almost nobody seems to get that the over-the-top rhetoric and 24/7 outrage coverage also drives the other side’s crazy people toward this kind of hoax.
This guy was fired as a journalist for making up sources (I guess he was an early innovator in the use of alternative facts), and his hoaxes were being done as part of his crazy obsessive stalking of his ex. I suspect a lot of hate hoaxes (and almost all done by someone who is out of college) are done by people who are fairly messed up like this.
There’s this creepy pattern that applies to mass shooters and jihadi recruits, too. You’re a loser, a small time crook who can’t regularly pay the rent, can’t seem to get his life together. And somehow some big narrative captures your imagination, and you can see yourself as being something greater than yourself by following it.
Sometimes the narrative is somewhat beneficial–maybe you straighten yourself up and start going to church, or join the army. Often it’s predatory–you spend your meager savings on self-help seminars provided by con-men, or you join a cult. And sometimes, like with going postal and shooting a bunch of strangers, or (much less bad!) doing a hate hoax, it’s destructive.
Posted inBlacks, Jews|Comments Off on Black Trump-Hating Journalist Breaks Up With White Girlfriend, Then Phones In Threats To Jewish Community Centers
Steve Sailer writes: [David P.] Goldman [aka Spengler] is real smart but his judgment is iffy: e.g., he collaborated with Lyndon LaRouche on at least one book.
I’m not as smart, but my judgment is a little more trustworthy.
But of course I’m widely considered a dangerous wacko because I worry about whether Invade the World, Invite the World is truly prudent.
* There is a modest possibility that the phrase “Sailer’s commenters are not happy about this latest trial balloon” occasionally gets passed up the chain.
* Well, they’re probably right this minute huddled together in the oval office, and at some point you’d hear: “How many divisions does Sailer have?”
Posted inSteve Sailer|Comments Off on Goldman vs Sailer
Gary* writes me: Will you keep on flirting with the Alt-Right now that they’ve resorted to desecrating Jewish tombstones?
My humble opinion is that the time for good relations is probably over.
The latest spate of bomb threats and desecration of Jewish graves is clearly on the Alt-Right.
Fits part and parcel with making life so uncomfortable for American Jews, that they all leave to Israel.
Jews are cowards if they leave to Israel out of pure fear.
I can only appreciate Aliyah if it’s done out of religious fervor. Anything else is cowardice and surrender.
I’d say it’s the Alt Right who should be afraid.. Unlike German Jewry, American Jews will have guns this time around and will fight back.
We can be vicious too.
And we will be.
It was all fun and games until now.
If the Alt-Right wants a fight, they will get one. They will begin to miss the relatively benign act of doxing, too.
You’ve got to be kidding me if you think the Alt Right= Evangelical Christians. The former view the latter as “Cuckservatives”. Nothing in common.
For Evangelical Christians, Jews are a necessary vessel for Redemption and Biblical prophecy. For the Alt-Right, Jews are merely Rats and Cockroaches (or worse, human viruses) assuming the form of human beings. So, to conflate Evangelicals with the Alt-Right is intellectually dishonest, at best.
The difference between Spencer and Andrew Anglin is the means by which separation is to be brought about… For Spencer it is voluntary self-deportation, for Anglin it is internment and death squads.
As for Israel.. My thoughts are mixed on the matter. Ideally, Israel is the home of the Jewish people, but practicalities govern and hold that Arabs will never accept a Jewish homeland in the Levant. Maybe the Anglos on the southern island of NZ would be willing to take Shekels as compensation in return for moving to mainland OZ or the northern island of NZ…
And the Palestinians can then choke on the abandoned land of Israel.
Luke Ford: “Alt Right simply short for Alternative Right, which is a big tent. One meaning is simply an alternative to conservatism’s practice of “invade the world, invite the world.” Another meaning is a white nationalism that is inherently xenophobic, racist and anti-Semitic. Only low-rent populist versions of the Alt Right regard Jews as rats. Alt Right intellectuals recognize Jewish gifts and strengths, but many simply don’t want them in their country. Let Jews shed the light of Torah somewhere else. Different groups have different interests. For example, every major Jewish organization in the US supports immigration amnesty. A goy who does not want to be replaced would be weird not to have some negative feelings about organized Jewry. Outside of faith statements, there are no objective good guys nor bad guys in the universe, there are just different forms of life competing to survive.”
The waves of bomb threats against Jewish institutions and high-profile vandalism of Jewish cemeteries are challenging accepted notions of anti-Semitic attacks, a prominent Jewish security expert told Haaretz Monday, warning that the threat of violence has reached unprecedented levels.
Paul Goldenberg, a former law enforcement official, is the national director of the Secure Community Network (SCN), is more concerned about attacks against Jewish institutions “than ever before during my entire career as a law enforcement officer.”
“In the past 45 days,” Goldenberg said, “there have been 190 incidents against Jews and Jewish institutions throughout the United States. This is unprecedented, we don’t know how to explain it, and, frankly, I’m worried.”
The SCN is a not-for profit organization established in 2004 by the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations and the Jewish Federations of North America. According to its website, SCN is “exclusively dedicated to homeland security initiatives on behalf of the American Jewish Community.” In this capacity, Goldenberg liaises with the FBI, which is responsible for criminal investigations, and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which is responsible for ensuring security within communities.
Security officials have also noticed an increase in neo-Nazi activity throughout the country, especially on websites. “Some sites have even put up pictures of Jewish children, as if they were targeted.”
Goldenberg reveals that, since the wave of attacks against Jewish Community Centers began less than two months ago, security officials “had a working theory that the calls all made by the same person. But I don’t think that any longer. Not since the desecration of the cemeteries – that’s a very different kind of activity, with a very different symbolism. At a minimum, we’re talking about copy cats.”
On Monday, at least 21 Jewish centers, including eight schools, received bomb threats in the fifth such wave sweeping the United States. According to the JCC Association, Monday’s wave brought the total of called in bomb threats over the last two months to 89 incidents at 72 locations in 30 states and 1 Canadian province.
On Sunday, a Jewish cemetery in Philadelphia became the latest victim of vandalism, when anywhere between dozens to hundreds of headstones were broken and toppled. This was the second incident in as many weeks, after hundreds of Jewish graves were desecrated St. Louis.
Goldenberg says the pattern of the threats and violence is different from what he has worked with until now. “In the past, such attacks were tied to geopolitical events – like Israel’s war in Gaza, for example. So we could hold our breath and know that when the situation calmed down, it would end. But there’s no such connection now.”
SCN makes security recommendations to Jewish communities throughout the U.S. and in Europe – although he declined to specify what these recommendations are and noted that SCN has no authority to mandate the implementation of any such measures.
SCN also provides training for security personnel in Jewish institutions. Over the past two weeks, Goldenberg said, they have provided telephone training to over 1,000 institutions, more than 800 of them in a single call-in. They also provide on line training (https://scnus.org/training/scn-homeland-security-and-preparedness-training-center) and files of best practices.
Throughout the interview, Goldenberg emphasized that he has no doubt about the unwavering commitment of the American law enforcement establishment to solving this problem. “American law enforcement is taking this very, very seriously and is totally committed to apprehending whoever is doing this.”
Posted inJews|Comments Off on Haaretz: Mounting Threats Against Jews Leaves Security Expert Baffled and Concerned
He divorced his wife a couple of years ago (after converting her to Judaism) and now he is marrying a Christian.
It’s wondrous the deep spiritual change a pretty young woman can provoke in a married old man.
Anne Snyder came to work for David as a research assistant and went on to serve him in a variety of positions. Now it appears that she is indeed worth a mass. Apparently, David Brooks is jettisoning his wife, his family, his religion and his people for Ms. Snyder and her faith.
Comment: “So the thought process is – marry and procreate with the goyim, send your mischlinge children off to fight for the IDF, while propagandize against your grandkids. Then divorce the first wife you had and marry your research assistant while writing a book hilariously called “The Road to Character.” (lol – I’m guessing he must have found that road and started down the other way.).”
Comment: “The only thing worse than the old Brooks is new Brooks. Never underestimate what an older man will do to keep banging a babe 25 years his junior.”
According to his Wikipedia entry (since scrubbed): “He is engaged to marry Anne Snyder, who was his personal assistant for his book “The Road to Character” and is 23 years his junior, on April 30, 2017.”
Brooks reveals little of his personal life, either in columns, books, or interviews. He threads Christian theology through his recent work, yet won’t say whether he has converted to anything (though he’ll say vaguely that he’s integrating with a new religious community). He is divorced from his wife of 27 years, Sarah, but doesn’t explain what role that break up, or the reasons for it, played in his moral awakening.
ABOVE: David with Anne Snyder, the next Mrs. Brooks.
So it sure looks like this writer on moral virtue had an affair with his alluring research assistant and divorced his aging wife (after she had converted from Christianity to Judaism and changed her name from Jane to Sarah).
Is David Brooks' registered? Is he getting married? Anyone can set up a registry so it's hard to know if it's real https://t.co/IXnPiYhVl2
If not for her, then I could not have written
a book about man’s moral sentiments
with such precision or such elegance;
It was all her. I was merely smitten
with the fine turn of her prose; once bitten
by the sharp turn of her thoughts, evident
on my mind like a sting on skin, and delicate
and irresistible as a little kitten,
I—I’m not ashamed to say—became
a nobler man, a better author, bigger
than my critics, certainly humbler in my own life.
Can a muse be another half of the same
person? She is the sole source of the vigor
of my prose. I also thank my wife.
A young Christian named Anne Snyder spent her first three years after college trying to break into the world of journalism while trying to serve Christ through her career. Then she landed a dream job. David Brooks, a nationally known columnist with The New York Times, hired Anne to be his research assistant. She acted as his sounding board, reading early drafts of his columns and …
David Brooks Is the White-Hot Center of D.C. Gossip
The political class of D.C. likes to complain that TV shows portraying the city as sexy and moody are unrealistic, so perhaps it’s appropriate that, for going on two years now, the sex life of the most mild-mannered New York Times columnist has been the subject of ceaseless speculation. Ever since the Washington Post reported David Brooks’s divorce from his wife of 27 years, Sarah, back in late 2013 (since disputed), countless stories and tweets have been written that use his personal life as a stick to beat his opinions with. At first, the tack was simply to wonder if a divorced man could still preach the virtues of family and marriage, but lately, as recent Brooks columns have meditated on love and leave-taking, speculation that he’s essentially writing about his divorce has becomerampant.
Now Politico turns the gossip up another notch with a romp through the acknowledgments page of Brooks’s new book, The Road to Character, which apparently lavishes much praise on his former research assistant. When contacted to ask if the two had ever had a relationship, Brooks’s publicist offered up a classic present-tense denial. What’s next? Surprising revelations within Brooks’sfootnotes?
Anne Snyder is a member of the Humane Pursuits editorial board. She is currently living in Houston, Texas, where she is studying the assimilation patterns of the city’s growing immigrant population while also working for the Laity Lodge Leadership Initiative. She has started a biweekly column for the Orange County Register and freelances elsewhere. Before moving to Houston she worked in the Op-Ed department of The New York Times in Washington, DC, and before that at World Affairs Journal and the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Originally from Boston but given the cross-cultural bug from a childhood spent in Hong Kong and Australia, she holds a B.A. from Wheaton College (IL) and an M.A. from Georgetown University.
Selected as Alumna of the Month for September 2014 by Georgetown’s Journalism program, Anne Snyder said: “There’s nothing like the process of discovering a person layer by layer, and I never cease to marvel at the magic that occurs when a question is asked that causes the subject to really look within and consider his life and context afresh.”
MPS Journalism: Why did you choose to attend Georgetown’s Journalism program? How did you hear about us?
Anne Snyder: I chose the program out of a keenly felt need to develop my own sense of vocational direction apart from a supportive (while very fulfilling) role at The New York Times. After a few years working at a think tank right after college, I wound up as an editor and research assistant for two columnists in the Times’ Washington bureau. While I was introduced to the institution of journalism, the craft itself remained an intimidating mystery. In the midst of learning and contributing value at a higher conceptual level (my academic background was in philosophy), I found myself yearning for more on-the-ground experience and tutelage in the nuts and bolts of a profession whose own industry changes made mentorship among full-time journalists tough to land. Georgetown’s program seemed like a safe space to find these handholds. A friend, Mallie Kim, had gone through the program, and the nature and quality of her final Capstone persuaded me that this was a place to test out new skills and practice, not simply study.
MPS JO: Who is your favorite working journalist?
AS:Anand Giridharadas, a periodic columnist for The New York Times and author (most recently) of “The True American: Murder and Mercy in Texas.” I’ve found him to be a kindred mind in the way he understands immigrant dynamics in the United States today, and I’d love one day to match his gifts in painting an engaging narrative arc while also peeling back the curtain on some fascinating cultural insights and empirical realities.
MPS J0: What one piece of advice would you give current students?
AS:Don’t procrastinate! This is my Achilles’ heel, particularly when it comes to writing, and I invariably pinch myself to do better next time – no matter how many years I’ve been at this! Deadlines are deadlines, and as a wise journalist once said to me, the most important quality of any piece is that of Doneness. Grooming a sense of step-by-step regularity and discipline with your creative process early on in the program will be something you fall back on for life. I’m still learning!
MPS JO: What’s your favorite thing about journalism?
AS:The interview. There’s nothing like the process of discovering a person layer by layer, and I never cease to marvel at the magic that occurs when a question is asked that causes the subject to really look within and consider his life and context afresh.
MPS JO: What’s the most memorable piece you’ve published and why?
AS:Years ago, I labored to express some heartfelt convictions about the growing class divide in this country, and the process of publicizing some convicted questions around my role as both communicator and citizen has kept me accountable to a rather unconventional professional path, one that is trying to merge doing with describing, serving with storytelling. Every time, I wonder why I’ve jumped ship from all things Acela Corridor and the stability of a brand-name institution, I go back to that blog post and gird up fresh courage for the adventure.
Anne Snyder is a research and editorial assistant at the New York Times, where she works closely with David Brooks. She was a key speaker at the first annual Fare Forward symposium (she’s also agreed to join our board of directors), and during her talk she mentioned she was interested in pursuing “Dorothy Day-style” journalism when she leaves the Times at some point in the future. I met with her to follow-up on that idea, and explore her formative influences more deeply.
One of the things Anne and I talked about was Coming Apart, Charles Murray’s masterful exploration of the growing economic and cultural divisions between elite and working class whites. The central thesis of Coming Apart—reviewed here by Andrew Schuman in FF—is that the upper class is profiting from practicing virtues of industriousness and self-restraint, but the lower class has lost those virtues and is suffering as a result. Murray’s solution is for elites to “preach what they practice” and try to persuade the lower class—from whom they have become increasingly isolated—to adopt these virtues as well…
After she leaves the Times she wants to work on cross-class integration by doing embedded journalism in immigrant communities.
I am currently reading a book called “Good Faith: Being a Christian when Society Thinks You are Irrelevant and Extreme” by David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons. They tell a story of a woman they know named Anne Snyder, who attended a Christian school and got a job as an assistant to well-known New York Times journalist, David Brooks. After Anne had been working for David a few years, he published a book called “The Road to Character” which includes a lengthy excerpt about Anne’s influence on him in the acknowledgments:
Anne C. Snyder was there when this book was born and walked with me through the first three years of its writing. This was first conceived as a book about cognition and decision making. Under Anne’s influence, it became a book about morality and inner life. She led dozens of discussions about the material, assigned me reading from her her own bank of knowledge, challenged the superficiality of my thinking in memo after memo and transformed the project. While I was never able to match the lyricism of her prose, or the sensitivity of her observations, I have certainly stolen many of her ideas and admired the gracious and morally rigorous way she lives her life. If there are any important points in this book, they probably came from Anne.
What a great influence Anne was to David! Did she have a degree or career in ministry? No, but she had a Christian background and let her moral character and faith shine in a way that significantly influenced her non-Christian boss. You may not be getting a ministry degree right now, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be a light in this world in whatever career you choose!
A college degree can definitely help you get a great career, and at Oak Hills you will receive the added bonus of having a Christian education where you will learn and be equipped in biblical teachings. You will be ready to take on the world in whatever path God sets before you AND you will be able to do it with his teachings in mind. Shine your light and make a difference! Be a positive influence to those around you by showing them what Christian Faith truly looks like in a person and in the workplace.
Is it OK to have an affair with a married man if in the end you bring him to Christ?
Luke 17:1-4
The Rev. Dr. Robert S. Langworthy, preaching
October 9, 2016
We can even influence, for good or ill, those “above” us. David Brooks is a nationally respected and honored columnist for the New York Times who is, by self-definition, not a Christian. A couple of years ago, he hired a recent college graduate named Anne Snyder to be his research assistant, because of how bright and articulate she is. He would soon also find out how decidedly Christian she is, radiating a vibrant faith.
While Brooks still identifies as an agnostic, he admits that knowing Snyder has changed his view of Christianity and made the faith more relevant to what he cares about. On his acknowledgement page in his 2015 book Road to Character, he writes that she challenged his previous superficial ideas, redirected his train of thought, and changed his book for the better. Brooks says, “I have certainly stolen many of her ideas and admired the gracious and morally rigorous ways she lives her life.”
Few things are more enticing to a man than a beautiful young woman’s moral rigor.
New York Times columnist David Brooks is getting the full Washington book party treatment Thursday night, with a fancy party to be hosted at the Kalorama mansion of his old friends Atlantic owner David Bradley and his wife. The new Brooks book, The Road to Character, extols the virtue of a noble life via the study of a handful of leaders and thinkers. However, it’s the effusive 110-word display of admiration and gratitude Brooks gives to Anne C. Snyder, his 30-year-old former New York Times research assistant, which is catching people’s attention. Brooks, easily one of the most admired conservative columnists in America, with a distinguished list of bestselling books, and a vocal critic of morality and cultural habits, devotes the opening paragraph of the “Acknowledgements” section to Snyder, gushing about the “lyricism of her prose” and the “sensitivity of her observations.” Brooks says it was Snyder’s influence that led him to write a book about “morality and inner life” and that she was a close partner in the “three years of its writing.”
The big-thinking journalist even gives credit to Snyder for the ideas in The Road to Character, writing: “If there are any important points in this book, they probably come from Anne.” Contacted Wednesday, Brooks backpedaled a bit. “That phrase,” he said, “was probably a poor choice of words on my part. I was trying to be appreciative and lighthearted.” Yet Anne Snyder, who now lives in Houston, stands in the acknowledgements as the only person not given a specific title: Fact-checker, editor, friend, parent, or even “ex-wife.” Brooks recently divorced his wife of 28 years, Sarah Brooks, and she gets a brief nod in the very last paragraph of the Acknowledgements for the “amazing job” she has done raising the couple’s three kids. Brooks didn’t respond to a question about his relationship with Snyder, and when asked whether the columnist and Snyder had ever been in a relationship, Brooks’ publicist answered only in the present tense: “He is not in a relationship with Anne Snyder.”
Is The New York Times’ David Brooks Converting to Christianity?
America’s foremost public intellectual ponders changing faith, sources say
“I’m a believer,” David Brooks said on National Public Radio Monday, and The New York Times columnist and author was not referring to his beloved New York Mets this season. Brooks was responding to a question about how his new book, “The Road to Character,” has changed his religious life.
“I read a lot of theology — whether it’s C.S. Lewis or Joseph Soloveitchik, a rabbi — and it’s produced a lot of religious upsurge in my heart,” he said, elaborating only slightly.
Brooks’ muted but heartfelt reply reflects a change in the celebrated writer’s tone and the subjects he chooses to write and speak about. In the course of his long writing career the 53-year-old Brooks has rarely broached the topic of his spiritual life. But in the last 12 months, he has been quite forthcoming.
“There’s something just awesome about seeing somebody stand up and imitate and live the non-negotiable truth of Jesus Christ,” Brooks told The Gathering, an annual meeting of evangelical Christian philanthropists, last October. He hardly hid his religiosity under a bushel there, telling the crowd, “I want you to know that I am for you and I love you,” he said, noting that he attends a Bible study class.
In the introduction to his new book, Brooks disclosed a personal reason for writing it: “I wrote it to save my soul.” Inspired by the authentic Christian joy of what he calls “incandescent souls,” Brooks decided to find out what makes them tick. Writing “The Road to Character” was his method.
“A few years ago I sent out to discover how those deeply good people got that way. I didn’t know if I could follow their road to character (I’m a pundit, more or less paid to appear smarter and better than I really am). But I at least wanted to know what the road looked like,” Brooks wrote in a recent column adapted from the book.
“The Road to Character” profiles exemplars of humility, devotion to a calling, and hard work, such as Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower and former Labor Secretary Frances Perkins.
But in his speech to The Gathering last fall and at the Aspen Ideas Festival last June, Brooks reserved his highest esteem for two religious figures, who he called his “heroes” — Dorothy Day and St. Augustine. Like C.S. Lewis, Day and Augustine are converts to Christianity. While Brooks has said he is an observant conservative Jew, one can’t help seeing these “heroes” as clues to Brooks’ own nascent conversion.
Three people interviewed who know Brooks personally say he has taken steps to do just that. “I don’t know that he’s converting, but I know he’s gone to church,” one conservative associate said of Brooks. “No one knows where it’s going to go, but he’s not in the same spot as he was two years ago.”
A second person familiar with Brooks’ thinking would only confirm that Brooks is interested in becoming a Christian. According to a third source, Brooks has received instruction in the Catholic faith from Arthur Brooks and Ross Douthat, both converts.
Arthur Brooks, the president of the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington, D.C., said he does not know if his friend is converting.
“I don’t know where he is on his faith journey,” Brooks said at the Conservative Political Action Conference, an annual gathering of movement activists and leaders, on Feb. 28. He said he has not talked with Brooks about his possible conversion to Christianity.
Douthat, also a New York Times columnist and author of the book “Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics,” did not reply to an email for comment. Nor did Brooks.
Yet Brooks has acknowledged his religious outlook has changed. “I don’t talk about my religious life in public in part because it’s so shifting and green and vulnerable,” he told NPR. “I don’t really talk about it because I don’t want to trample the fresh grass.”
Brooks has long attended Adas Israel, a Conservative congregation in Washington with many well-connected and politically influential members. The recently divorced Brooks is part of an informal Jewish study group led by Orthodox scholar Erica Brown along with fellow prominent Washingtonians, among them former Meet the Press host David Gregory and Atlantic writer Jeffrey Goldberg. Brooks says he now also meets regularly with Christian theologians.
As Brooks, 54, struggles publicly with questions about who we are and what we believe, he is more cryptic about what he describes as his transition into a new religious community…
But you’ve hinted that you’ve undergone some kind of shift in spiritual outlook. What is that?
I don’t talk about my own faith. It’s all so new and green that I’m afraid if I talk about it in public, it will become like my political opinions, just a bumper sticker, not a living, breathing thing. I will say that right now I’m just a magpie. I read everything, and some of it is Jewish and some of it is Christian, and some of it is just humanistic. Ethnically, culturally, historically, I’m Jewish. Parts of Jewish theology I like—the emphasis on agency. There are parts of Christianity—a more richly developed sense of grace— that I find very beautiful. And so now, just in my attempt at understanding, I’m reading everything and seeing everybody. I go to the Jewish Theological Seminary and I go to Gordon College, a Christian school in Massachusetts. I’m just in learning mode.
You said you should be more in community. Have you done that?
That part I really don’t like to talk about. But the short answer is I haven’t found a community.
Was there a threshold event that led to your new focus on morality and spirituality?
No, I didn’t have a midlife crisis. If anything, it was the opposite, it was moments of coming home and seeing my kids so happy, and meeting people who were just so joyful. And I would love to experience and radiate that inner joy, which they did. So it’s more aspirational than that I hit rock bottom and I’m rebounding.
Have you experienced a loss of personal religious purpose or are you seeing this primarily in society at large?
Both. Some people pray at shul or at church or mosque, or in the woods. I pray by writing. And that means sometimes I’m like one of those creatures who’s preaching to himself from the pulpit. I’ve been observant mostly through my family. We kept kosher at home, my kids went to Jewish day schools, we had Shabbat meals. So at that moment, I was more traditionally observant than I am now. At the same time, I’m now reading a lot more Soloveitchik and a lot more Heschel. So in some sense my observance is down but my thinking is up.
Since you’re still in the pundit game, I have to ask, who do you think will be the next president and why will Americans choose him or her?
I think Hillary Clinton will be the next president. My normal rule is, people vote for order.
* “For the life of me, I can’t figure out why so many Republicans prefer a dying white America to a place like, say, Houston.”
Nothing more hilarious than white Americans cheering on the death of white America. The level of dissonance is unreal.
* He quoted Sailer for a while, actually, then they realized what he was doing and came after him.
He seems pretty solidly anti-Trump now.
* It’s remarkable how the advent of Trump has liberated speech. We’re finally having that honest conversation about race, and Republicans are leading the way!
Bill Kristol, Feb. 7, 2017:
“Look, to be totally honest, if things are so bad as you say with the white working class, don’t you want to get new Americans in?”
David Brooks, Feb. 24, 2017:
“For the life of me, I can’t figure out why so many Republicans prefer a dying white America to a place like, say, Houston.”
Any other examples of Republicans having such sudden outbreaks of honesty?
* David Brooks used to be very acerbic, before he saw his role as defending the new establishment. Here is a very telling Brooks piece, dancing on the grave of the old establishment.
* Brooks needs to read Borjas, George. He shows quite plainly that illegal immigration of low-skilled workers reduces incomes of low-skilled Americans and has the net effect of transferring wealth from low-skilled Americans to wealthy Americans.
* Of those Jews that vote Republican, aren’t there at least as many who do so for other reasons, such as Israel[1]; law and order/ safety from street thugs; and, especially since 9/11, national security? Don’t forget, as well, that many Jews, especially in the public sector, have been victims of affirmative action, losing their jobs to less-qualified Blacks or Latinos/Hispanics. (E.g., public school systems, perhaps most notably New York City’s.) There are also at least some Jews, as has been noted in other comments in this thread, who oppose the onslaught of mass third-world immigration. (Again, the number of such Jews has undoubtedly increased after 9/11 and subsequent terrorist attacks in the West.) Finally, there are Jews for whom social/cultural conservatism factors, to varying degrees, into their voting GOP. While most in this latter category are likely Orthodox, not all are. Unz Review’s own Paul Gottfried, for example, is certainly someone who seems to appreciate the moral and cultural scourge posed by “LGBTQ” degeneracy (as well, I believe, of Internet pornography).[2]
For reasons that should be obvious, I find it germane to note that I am an emphatically non-Zionist Orthodox Jew[1] who abhors Cultural Marxism and is vehemently opposed to both the “invade” as well as the “invite” wings of the globalist bird of prey. I also feel a debt of gratitude for the unprecedented kindness and religious tolerance of an overwhelmingly White and Christian America. (While wishing no one any harm merely because of such accidents of birth as race or national, ethnic or religious origin.) My view of individuals such as Jennifer Rubin, David Brooks and Bill Kristol should not be difficult to guess.
NOTES:
[1] Or, more properly, the Zionist State that calls itself “Israel”. Zionism, from its inception and in all of its forms, was declared a grave violation of Judaism and opposed by a near-unanimous consensus of the foremost rabbinical authorities and Judaic sages. Had their words been heeded, the Zionist State would never have been created. Now that it has, its existence presents a terribly difficult, complicated and ultra-delicate situation for Torah-true Jews. While there are legitimate differences in opinion among bona fide rabbinical authorities on many points concerning the proper approach to take in the matter, far too many of even some of the most otherwise loyal and devout Jews– including even some great rabbis– have been led astray by the golden calf of Zionism, causing them to err and stumble in this area.
[2] Some examples, in addition to Gottfried’s piece on Cultural Marxism that I linked above:
While addressing either his own H.L. Mencken Society or some other gathering of those on what one of the speakers termed the “heretical Right”, I heard Gottfried take exception to the conventional (and trite) Republican criticism of Obama as a “Socialist”. Being a “socialist”, argued Gottfried, is the least of the problems with Obama; “He’s a radical!”. I do not recall Gottfried’s words well enough to be more specific but I do recall that if Gottfried did not explicitly specify that he meant, at least in large part, Obama’s unprecedented level of support for the “LGBTQ” agenda (which Gottfried may very well have), then I certainly understood Gottfried to be implying that.
Another example: I heard Gottfried (in an interview with Kevin Michael Grace, if I recall correctly) in the context of explaining his rejection of White Nationalism, declare that he would not, for example, want to side with homosexuals* against Blacks.
As for pornography and the like, while there is no instance of Gottfried addressing it explicitly that I can recall or point-to, I can say the following. I do not find it it all inconceivable that someone such as Gottfried may, for all I know, have little-to-no problem with the likes of Playboy. When it comes to the kind of corrosive filth, however, that the Internet has given every child by the age of 12 de facto nearly unrestricted access to– material that makes the likes of Playboy, by comparison, look downright wholesome— I have little doubt of Gottfried’s concern and even outright disapproval.
*I feel I should note here that when Gottfried said “homosexuals”, I doubt he was referring merely to anyone’s personal proclivities or even to their personal behavior, per se— at least as long as it would remain discreet. Rather, I took Gottfried to be referring-to brazen, buggering, activist Sodomites who tyrannically insist that everyone not merely tolerate, not even merely respect, but actually embrace, celebrate, champion and subsidize their wanton, inordinately disease-promoting degeneracy– public health; the welfare of confused and vulnerable children; what was the very foundation of society for the entire history of humanity; and religious liberty all be damned. (Not to mention the spilling-over of said degeneracy into heterosexual youth culture.)
"This guy knows all the gossip, the ins and outs, the lashon hara of the Orthodox world. He’s an [expert] in... all the inner workings of the Orthodox world." (Rabbi Aaron Rakeffet-Rothkoff)
