Comments on: Agudath Israel Blog Links Obama to Haman

By: Richard Silverstein

Richard Silverstein — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 00:39:53 +0000

@Michoel: You left out a few things. There is no official connection, except that the spokesman for the Agudah himself is one of the writers. Cross Currents obliges and obeys the haredi rabbinical leaders.

If Shafran or any other haredi power broker(s) dictates policy to Menken, that will be CC policy. If the MO Weinreb or Joel Klein attempted to dictate policy to dictate policy, Menken would laugh.

Adlerstein’s essay came almost three weeks AFTER the election. Of course CC is going to have someone say something nice and conciliatory. Adlerstein is there because he is a macher, and frum Jews like machers.

I, and many other Agudah-type Jews, do not see the comparison.

As for the Haman article, I and most other reasonable non-Agudah type Jews found the article deeply offensive. I have no doubt that Agudah Jews, after Obama won the election, might find the piece embarrassing in retrospect & would want to say they don’t see the comparison.

By: M

Thu, 18 Dec 2008 15:45:44 +0000

Richard,
Cross-currents is in NO WAY an organ, semi-official, or otherwise, of the Agudah. And if it was, you should also link to Rabbi Adlerstein’s very favorable recent post about combating racism Obama.

http://www.cross-currents.com/archives/2008/11/24/on-racism-its-costs-and-its-causes/

The quote comparing Haman to Obama really does not do that. It is more comparing the circumstances of Klal Yisrael then and now. I, and many other Agudah-type Jews, do not see the comparison.

By: Richard Silverstein

Richard Silverstein — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 22:58:37 +0000

@Michoel: Cross Currents’ editor has a very close affiliation with Agudah & many Orthodox Jews view it as expressing ideas held by Agudah’s leadership.

By: M

Wed, 17 Dec 2008 19:07:22 +0000

Um… Cross-currents is completely independent of the Agudah. Just in case you are interested in reality.

By: Richard Silverstein

Richard Silverstein — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 01:27:52 +0000

@HENRY: Well, you had me with you until the anti-Arabism & pro settler rhetoric crept in.

By: H

Mon, 24 Nov 2008 18:49:16 +0000

all this talk of obama is not good for any jew be they orthodox or not . he is our president and pray for him that he should be good for us and america and the world at large and we should pray for isreal by respecting one and all jews we dont have to agree with non orthodox jews.but pray for them to do repentance and do our own repentance as well but we should not give up any part of isreal. they dont want peace they want a piece of isreal and that should never happen

By: cs

cs — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 14:41:20 +0000

Hi everyone,
I have been reading dreams about Barack Obama from Sheila Heti’s website. she is from Canada and has been asking people all over the world to submit dreams they have had about the candidats for the election. I think the website is called IdreamofBarack.com or something similar. and I thought this dream is quite strange given the discussion above:

134. 22-Year-Old University Of Chicago Alumni

I’m at summer camp with my husband’s family and one of the evening’s activities is a Purim party. Campers are randomly selected to play parts in a reenactment of the Purim story, and Barack is chosen to play Haman. Everyone at the camp (mostly Barack supporters, apparently) is disappointed that Barack, clearly a hero in real life, is to play the villain in the skit, but he’s a good sport, and we are all impressed with his acting skills.

Posted by Sheila Heti at 8:55 AM

By: c.

c. — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 12:57:51 +0000

about this observant thing:

ortho/frum judaism is based entirely on this idea that a subset of humans
have instructions received from an alien being.

said instructions are believed by these observant types to have supernatural
effects.

the key thing we learn from the holocaust is that torah/kabalah/halacha/chazal/hasgafa/kvannah/whatever doesn’t work against a real enemy.

thus the orthodox hypothesis is disproven and one may call any observant person “superstitious”.

as for the self-hating epithet….i’m not superstitious so that which is in the heart of the superstitious erlicher type is not within me.

so i am ethnically jewish and not self-hating and not superstitious.

pretty simple eh?