Tikun Olam-תקון עולם: Make the World a Better Place

Many of the journalists who’ve reported on the Clarion Fund and its anti-Islam “documentary” Obsession have wondered why the film credits listed fake names for the two producers.  Yesterday we reported that the real name of one of the producers is Erik Werth.  Thanks to Meg Laughlin of the St. Petersburg Times, we may have the answer.  The Charlotte Observer reported the following in 1995:

Charlotte Observer (North Carolina)

August 2, 1995 Wednesday THREE EDITION

Man charged in Secret Service ruse

COLUMBIA - A former U.S. Treasury Department adviser has been charged with impersonating a Secret Service agent in order to get a airline service charge dropped, U.S. Attorney Pete Strom says.

A federal grand jury Tuesday indicted Erik Werth, 25, of Rosslyn, Va., a former policy adviser to the Treasury Department’s undersecretary for enforcement, Strom said. Assistant U.S. Attorney Erik Ruschky said the undersecretary oversees agents in the Secret Service; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms; and the Customs Service.

The indictment accused Werth of impersonating a Secret Service agent by threatening to have an employee arrested at the Columbia airport on May 22. He caused a disturbance by demanding a waiver of a service charge for changing his plane ticket, Ruschky said. If convicted, Werth faces a maximum penalty of three years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

I can imagine why Clarion might’ve given Werth a false identity in fear that his past would damage the credibility (if it ever had any) of the film. I also find it ironic that Werth was arrested for assuming a false identity and Clarion did precisely the same thing in shielding Werth from scrutiny.

All of this skullduggery becomes all the more confusing given that the new Clarion documentary Third Jihad DOES list Werth as producer. I guess Clarion decided that they were no longer embarrassed by having someone accused of a federal crime connected to their project.

Maybe Hank Scheinkopf, Clarion’s new PR flack will have a ready explanation for this to journalists who call him asking for one. And to anyone in the Jewish community either contemplating hosting a screening of this film or attending one, I’d urge you to factor this little bit of sleaziness into your calculations.

If someone is sleazy enough to believe they can abuse their former role in the U.S. government’s national security apparatus in order to weasel out of an airline ticket fee, who knows what they wouldn’t do to smear Muslims in pursuit of a juicy story.

To any intrepid researcher who can confirm how this case was disposed I’d be grateful.

Thanks to investigative reporting of Will Evans and reader Robin McLaren, we’ve uncovered the identity of one of the formerly secret producers of Obsession (you’ll recall that the Clarion Fund listed two producers’ names for the film and both were fake). His name is Erik Werth, and he’s a former Clinton Administration advisor for “homeland security issues” (though there was no such concept in the Clinton Administration) and news producer for NBC’s Dateline.

I don’t understand for the life of me why we didn’t pick up on this earlier. He was publicly named as a producer in the N.Y. Post and other right-wing media. Even stranger is why Raphael Shore, Clarion’s director would feel the need to shield the identity of someone who had already revealed his identity. Now, some enterprising reporter needs to locate Werth and ask him why he was afraid to attach his name to the film or why Clarion is keeping him a secret. Even more important, we need to know from him who the real money (that would be secret producer number 2) behind Obsession and Third Jihad is.

Evans has also dug up Clarion’s application for 501c3 status and it provides interesting reading.  Whether intentionally or unintentionally, Clarion’s lawyer, Eli Greenberg, filed both incomplete and inaccurate information as part of the exemption application.

Here are some of the most interesting anomalies. The IRS asks on page 9 (Section V, 2a):

Are any of your officers, directors or trustees related to each other through…business relationships?

Raphael Shore, Clarion’s president and Rebecca Kabat, its vice-president are both employees of Aish HaTorah.  I’m not sure for IRS purposes whether this constitutes a “business relationship.”

On page 11 (part VIII, 1) Greenberg erroneously answered “No” to the question: “Do you support or oppose candidates in political campaigns in any way?  As reporters have noted, the Radical Islam site (hosted by Clarion) featured an explicit attack on Barack Obama’s national security credentials and an endorsement of McCain’s.

Part VIII, 12a (page 13) asks: “Do you or will you operate in a foreign country?”  To which Greenberg answers “No.”  I would be curious whether Clarion has hosted any screenings of either of their films in Israel.  If so, this should be another violation.  In addition, Raphael Shore lists his address as “Rova, Israel.”  How can he be the director and NOT operate in a foreign country?

Clarion’s application is clearly false in answering this question (page 14, part VIII, 15): “Do you have a close connection to any other organizations?”  Greenberg answers “No.”  Many news reports have documented the overlap of personnel between Clarion and Aish HaTorah.  Since Clarion has a number of employees but lists only one being paid on this application, I have a strong suspicion that Aish is paying the salaries of staff that are doing work for Clarion.  If that doesn’t constitute “closely related,” then the IRS regulations have no meaning.

As part of Clarion’s supplemental IRS filing (page 13) , it offers an enthusiastic endorsement letter from Jeffrey Norwitz, professor of national security studies and John N. Brown Chair of Counterterrorism at the Naval War College.  Personally, I have no idea how these things are supposed to work–but I’m extremely uncomfortable with a professor at a federally-funded military college offering an endorsement of such a hate-filled anti-Muslim piece of garbage like Obsession.  Here is a summary of a few of his encomiums:

…I’ve found it [Obsession] the finest teaching tool yet in educating students about the nature of the threat posed by radical Islamic extremists.

…At the end of course [Norwitz teaches a course on terrorism], nearly every student opines that Obsession should be screened by everyone in uniform.  This includes the Muslim officers from allied navies who also attend the War College.

…Obsession is a necessary corrective to broadcast media’s unwillingness to inform the public regarding the existential threat posed by fanatic elements with Islam.

How does the U.S. military propose to understand the Muslim countries in which it might have to serve or see action if it uses dreck like Obsession as the basis for “understanding” Islam??  And can you believe the chutzpah of this guy recommending that Muslim naval officers should have this film crammed down their throats too?  I think it’s comic and outrageous that he thinks that Obsession will tear the scales off the eyes of Muslims to such a secret and dastardly phenomenon within their own religion.  It’s mighty white of him.

The coup de grace is this post from the Jewish Current Issues blog which heralds the Who’s Who of the Jewish right which turned out in force for the 2007 Republican National Coalition annual dinner.  And he’s got pictures to boot.  If you wanted to diagram the connections between the RJC and Clarion and every other Jewish wingnut outfit, you couldn’t do better than reading this post:

There were some 600 people in attendance at the dinner, including some very prominent people: William Daroff, National Vice President of the United Jewish Communities; Avi Davis of the American Freedom Alliance; Roz Rothstein and Esther Renzer of StandWithUs; Greg Ross of Aish Ha Torah; Erik Werth of the movie “Obsession;” Si Frumkin, longtime Soviet Jewry activist; Doris Wise Montrose, President of Children of Jewish Holocaust Survivors Los Angeles; Senior Pastor of Simi Hills Christian Church Kevin Dieckilman; Mark Paredes from the Morman Church community and the American Jewish Congress; Shimon Erem, Gary Dalin and Patricia Johnson of the Israel Christian Nexus; David Justman and Adam Schreiber from JINSA (the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs); Michael Warder, Vice Chancellor of Pepperdine University School of Public Policy and Jay Hoffman from the Pepperdine Board; David Horowitz and others from the David Horowitz Freedom Center; and Dan Polisar, President of the Shalem Center in Jerusalem (when Natan Sharansky now works).

Obviously, attending a group’s dinner doesn’t necessarily provide proof that the RJC or its donors are the ones funding Obsession, Third Jihad, and the 28 million DVD mailing to swing state voters (cost=$15-50 million).  But if it’s not the smoking gun, then it’s perhaps the finger that puts the bullet in the gun before firing it.

By the way, if Clarion and all these other alleged 501c3 Jewish groups are NOT supporting or opposing political candidates (remember that IRS exemption application question), then what are they doing at the RJC dinner?  In particular, why is the producer of the film at a Republican-affiliated dinner and being identified with the film in this blog?  Shouldn’t that make an IRS official begin to wonder whether this group is really non-partisan?  And I wonder whether Clarion paid for their tickets?  Wouldn’t that constitute yet another partisan activity?

And the next time you read any of these groups like Clarion, Stand With Us, JINSA or the Shalem Center claim that they are non-partisan, remind them of this passage and then laugh at the joke.

Jewish Wingnut Alert:

Now that I’ve got your attention I should point out that the title is a lie, just as is this roughly parallel charge by the American far-right American Thinker and Commentary Magazines.  This is real “out there” stuff. I liken it to the Jewish version of the National Enquirer. So I hope you can follow the whacked out “argument” as outlined in Key Obama adviser called for US military invasion of denuded Israel:

A video clip from a 2002 interview reveals Power calling for…”sacrificing … billions of dollars not in servicing the Israeli military but rather investing in the new state of Palestine” and in a “mammoth protection force.”

Power suggested that the US would need to send a “meaningful military presence” to go in on a scale greater than any previous force. Though “imposition of a solution on unwilling parties is as a “dreadful… a terrible thing to do, … fundamentally undemocratic,” she said, it was essential to stop Israeli and Palestinian leaders who seem “politically destined to destroy the lives of their own peoples.” She suggested that just as “external intervention” in Rwanda might have prevented genocide, doing the the same in “Palestine-Israeli situation” would likely prove “lesser evils.”

Did you follow that?  Powers, way back in 2002, suggested that neither the Israelis nor the Palestinians are capable of resolving their conflict; and that in the interests of regional stability and ending the bloodshed for both sides, that the U.S. should intervene and possibly impose a settlement on both sides.  Sounds like advocating an invasion to me, doesn’t it?

By the way, this is an idea that Power didn’t think up herself.  In fact, Zeev Sternhell, distinguished Hebrew University professor who was the victim of an assassination attempt last week, suggested precisely this idea in a post bombing interview.  Henry Siegman has also suggested it.

One can legitimiately argue whether this proposal can work in the face of possible opposition from both sides.  But to smear the idea by calling it an invasion of Israel is beyond ludicrous.

By the way, would anyone care to lay down a wager on how long it wll be before Marty Peretz starts shreying from the rooftops about this in his TNR blog, The Spine[less]? The list of other right-wing loony tunes sites which features this dreck is the usual suspects, but I really liked the sound of this one, Fuckfrance. Isn’t the blog name a bit passe considering France is now ruled by a president who adores the U.S. and Bush politics?

Considering that Samantha Power left the Obama campaign months ago, one wonders what’s the point of this smear now. The Israel Insider piece gives you your answer:

The Irish-born Power, pegged as a leading candidate for a top foreign policy position in a prospective Obama administration, perhaps NSC Advisor or even Secretary of State…

The militant pro-Israel right here in the U.S. is terribly frightened of the Middle East advisors Obama will appoint to negotiate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. They want to lay down the first marker in the battle to ensure honest brokers like Power will not make it into the new Administration. They’ve smeared Brzezinski, they’ve smeared Rob Malley, now they’re smearing Samantha Power. It’s a shame.

A friend of my wife’s sent her this satirical graphic in an e mail which, by now, has probably gone viral. It should. It’s one of the funniest things I seen in days if not weeks and encapsulates where the campaign stands perfectly (at least as far as I’m concerned).

J Street announced this week a national petition campaign asking Jewish newspapers around the country to refuse the smear ads offered by the Republican Jewish Coalition (”Obama–anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian, hostile to America”).  In the two days since the campaign began, it has gathered 20,000 signatures and 2,500 new members for J Street.

It’s great to have my sense of the importance of this story confirmed by J Street’s support.  Jewschool has also joined with a supportive post.  I hope you’ll go to the website and sign the petition.  The site allows you to directly import your address book and use it to circulate the petition to your own friends and family.  I hope you’ll do that.

Let’s tell the Jewish media that there should be fairness and an insistence on a standard of truth in such election ads.  If the standard isn’t met the ad shouldn’t run.  By all means, let the papers accept ads from whoever wishes to run them.  But the ads should not be allowed to cross over into outright lies and calumny.

The Jewish Forward told me they refused to reject the ads.  They’re apparently too cowed by the reception they’ll get from the RJC if they do.  Giving liberal Jews like me and now J Street the cold shoulder is apparently a price The Forward is willing to pay.

And let’s not restrict our criticism to The Forward.  Haaretz, JTA and Jewish Week are also accepting the ads and the first two haven’t even replied to messages from me seeking comment.  At least, Gary Rosenblatt had the good sense to run the RJC ad on page 34 of the latest edition where hopefully no one will see it.

It appears that Barack Obama is likely to become our next president.  Is it right that the RJC should be allowed to poison the waters in our community with outright lies and hate about the candidate’s record and beliefs?  And is this the kind of behavior we want to see in future presidential elections from scurrilous Jewish groups like the RJC?

John McCain again tried to channel Teddy Roosevelt in tonight’s debate though he almost flubbed the phrase for which the Republican president was best known:

You know, my hero is a guy named Teddy Roosevelt. Teddy Roosevelt used to say walk softly — talk softly, but carry a big stick.

McCain is clearly trying to invoke the Rough Rider, happy warrior image that Roosevelt earned charging up San Juan Hill during the Spanish-American War.  Perhaps he’s even trying to summon the memory of the Roosevelt who won a Nobel Peace Prize negotiating an end to the Russo-Japanese War.

Problem is, John’s omitting the other Roosevelt, the one that puts ol’ John to shame: the hard-charging trust buster, reformer admired by legions of Americans for standing up for the little guy against the moneyed corporate interests.  John’s forgetting that Roosevelt considered himself a “Progressive” Republican.

The sad fact is that John McCain of 2000 could’ve assumed TR’s mantle comfortably.  The Straight Talk Express, the real Straight Talk Express as opposed to the ersatz one of the current campaign, would resonate with voters.  That McCain could’ve beaten Barack Obama.  For the life of me, I don’t understand why he didn’t try to return to 2000.  Instead, he’s filled his campaign with lobbyists like Rick Davis, who TR would’ve been the first to deride for their conflicts of interest in representing the people’s interests first and foremost.

If events proceed in this campaign as they’ve developed over the past 10 days, it appears McCain will lose–perhaps in an Electoral College landslide.  If that happens, there will actually be a tinge of sadness for me.  Of course, I will be overjoyed that a progressive Democrat has taken the White House.  But the fact that he did so with the unbidden help of a massive financial crisis, what Warren Buffett has called a “financial Pearl Harbor,” takes much of the joy out of it for me.

I would much prefer for Obama to have won solely on the merits of his superior campaign and the strength of his ideas.  I certainly believe that he had all of this going for him.  And perhaps he might’ve won anyway.  But it is hard to win when the victory takes place amidst so much suffering.

Let’s hope that, as David Brooks of all people said tonight on Charlie Rose, that Obama has surrounded himself with economic advisors of such consummate skill that they come up with a plan to get us out of this mess sometime before the end of the current century.

This is the third episode of the Justin White follies whereby a convert to Orthodox Judaism proves that certain far-right tendencies in the denomination can turn even a non-Jew into a foaming-at-the-mouth Jew-hating, Arab-hating, Ashkenazi-hating, Yiddish-hating Jewish bigot.

Here he uses the tired Kahanist trope of calling me a Kapo. You’d think after the 20th or 30th time someone tried this here that they’d try to invent a newer, fresher insult:

…Your shallowness [is] a result of having had a bankrupt Jewish education like so many of your fellow Arab-hugging self-hating confused “reformers.”

You post monsters like Daniel Barenboim and you try to label be [sic] as “anti-Semitic?” No one loves Semitism more than I do. You don’t know what Semitism is, my silver-haired adversary. I have been involved with Jews of Arab countries from day one. Only KAPOS like you try to be sneaky and turn the guilt around. Richard Silverstein-the post-Semite! (I’m sure you don’t have the guts to post this paragraph.)

You consider me an extremist because you are so far from your own religion. Would you consider Samuel an extremist for killing the King of Amalek? Would you consider Moses an extremist for having killed an Egyptian (who attacked a Jew)? It is the “enlightened” “Jew” like yourself who would. Why don’t you think about that on Yom Kippur? Your soul needs whiting.

PS: I am not a baal-tsuvah [sic]. A baal-tsuvah [sic] is someone who was born to a Jewish mother and then became observant. A convert is a convert. I am a convert to Judaism. If you became observant, Richard, you would be a baal-tsuvah [sic]. Who is the ignoramus?

I like the claim that Daniel Barenboim, one of the world’s most distinguished conductors, is a “monster.” That would be because he has sympathy for the suffering of the Palestinian people. You see, in Reb Justin’s world if you care for anyone who is not Jewish, nay anyone who is non-Orthodox, you’re ipso facto a monster.

Perhaps the only accurate point that Justin has made in his entire diatribe is that “convert” in Hebrew appears to be ger. I always thought it was baal teshuvah and perhaps I made a mistake in calling him that.

Justin really gave me a chuckle when, after reading me out of the Jewish people, he wrote the following:

Be Careful

You don’t have to make this so personal. Comments like “twisted human being like Justin White” are unacceptable.

I guess for Justin it’s all a question of whose ox is being gored. He only howls when it’s his, but cares not a whit when he gores someone else. As for twisted, I’m afraid you are Justin. And B.BarNavi, who writes that he’s had the “displeasure” of knowing Justin, names the initials of the rabbis who have mentored our ger, who would be aghast if they read the insults and hate he has flung my way. I would only like the opportunity to convey some of Justin’s rhetoric to his rabbinic mentors.

It’s also rich that after mocking my Judaism through countless e mail messages he attempts to take me to task for mocking his intolerant concept of Judaism. Also, I think I’ve hurt Justin’s feelings in noting that his racialist rhetoric mirrors that of the Nazis. Notice how he claims I’ve called him a Nazi when I did no such thing (though that distinction would be too much nuance for Justin to handle):

When you mock a convert you are breaking 2 Torah mitzvot (love your fellow Jew AND love the convert). The fact that you would call a convert an anti-Semite as well as (to no shame) compare to a Nazi (which you Leftists LOVE to do) shows what level you are on Jewishly…I have limits for the tar and feathering I am willing to take…When you accuse me of being in line with people who murdered Jews-that is really beyond the pale.

It’s also characteristic of someone like Justin to deny that B.BarNavi knows him when based on the content of the comment I linked to above he clearly does:

Don’t know [who he is]-thought he was one of your friends!

To all his other faults, it appears we have to add yet another: liar.

I don’t think I’ve ever used the term in the title of this post to describe a fellow Jew before.  I generally detest the phrase since it’s so misused.  But how else to properly describe the strange attitudes of baal teshuvah, Justin White, who so detests so many of his fellow Jews.  And it’s not only that he detests us, but that he uses the same racialist terminology used by Hitler to demean Jews.  Only in Justin’s case, he’s demeaning the vast majority of world Jewry who are not Orthodox.

For those who believe I’m overstating my case regarding him, read the following:

My father is actually Korean and mother is German-American (whoops you MESSED up). You are more inbred than I could ever be, and I see that by looking at your photo.

The use of the term “inbred” is a perhaps unintentional echoing of Nazi slurs against the Jews as is the notion that you can read racial characteristics about someone based on their picture.

So is this what Judaism has come to in the hands of a twisted human being like Justin White? Is it nothing more than a way for him to prove his racial superiority over those Jews he reads out of the race? And if this is so, hasn’t White given Hitler a posthumous victory?

I find the following passage astonishing because the italicized passage echoes, in some sense, the claims of anti-Zionists who say that the European Jews who settled Israel have no direct connection or claim to the country. Here White actually has the chutzpah to attempt to strip non-Orthodox Jews of any claim on being Jewish. To him, as with the anti-Zionists, we are a bunch of European interlopers with a bogus claim to Jewish authenticity:

I don’t believe in this word “orthodox” [sic] when it comes to Judaism…Instead of saying Torah or Judaism, people like Lerner and Silverstein (and Rabbi Brenda-the mascot of the “reform” “movement”), cleverly dub post-Semitic self-hate “Judaism” “reform ” or “conservative.” I resent being called “Orthodox right-wing…” I like the militant part.

Do you really think that Ruth would espouse the views you do concerning Judaism and our Arab neighbors (let’s leave them out of this)? She would be coming after people like you fast and furious (for sure better than I). Ruth was from Moav-a MIZRACHIT or Jew from the Middle-East. That is in contrast to people like Richard who are basically Europeans pretending to have some connection to the Judaism (when they aren’t helping are enemies).

…Mr. Silverstein is correct about my lack of humility. This is something for me to consider in these days of soul-searching.

The idea that the kind, loving Ruth would treat a fellow Jew with the boiling hatred with which White does is enough to turn my stomach.  No Justin White, whether Jew or not, will wrench my tradition of love, compassion and tolerance from me.

Here is more in a similar vein:

…Your response to me is the heretic’s response to Torah Judaism. That so-called Seminary [Jewish Theological Seminary] is for sure Judianity-that don’t [sic] believe that the Torah is of divine origin-so it says on a conservative “conversion.”

As for “shande fahr di yidn,” I don’t speak Amalek! The fact that you quote Germanic-Hebrew back to an Israeli convert basically sums up the differences between you and me, Richard.

…A Jew who doesn’t know Hebrew is considered to be illiterate. Does that make you an embarrassment (I have been plugging away since 1996, sometimes on my own), or me the embarrassment for having been diligent.

It is you and Tikkun and Rabbi Brenda and the “Reform” movement that spews hate, Richard.

Only in the most extreme forms of Jewish Orthodoxy do non-Orthodox become “heretics.” You’ll also note that White claims that the Jewish Theological Seminary, which he claims espouses “Judianity,” is as good as promoting Christianity by bastardizing Judaism.

Though an Orthodox Jew–a large percentage of whom actually speak Yiddish–White doesn’t seem to know anything about the language. In fact, he commits the grave sin of calling Yiddish by the hateful term “Amalek.” I have never heard Yiddish described as “Germanic-Hebrew” and don’t know whether White is simply ignorant of the language or trying to smear it.  Either way, his presumption and am-haaretz-ness is stunning.

The Jewish Forward handed the Republican Jewish Coalition a victory today in the latter’s ongoing campaign to sow seeds of hate within American Jews for Barack Obama.  The RJC has published paid advertising in Haaretz, The Forward, JTA and Jewish Week calling the candidate “anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian, hostile to America.”  I’ve critiqued the mendaciousness of the ads in posts here earlier.

I had hoped that at least Haaretz and The Forward might reconsider their decision so I wrote to the editorial and advertising staff of each publication.  Today, Andrew Lavin, a PR consultant, e mailed me asking for my phone number.  Later, he and David Drimer, associate publisher, called together to defend the Forward’s acceptance of the ads.  The arguments were odd.  I reminded them that even FOX News has refused ads smearing Obama during this election cycle from right-wing Republican groups.  I couldn’t understand why the Forward wouldn’t perform its own due diligence on political ads.

Drimer replied that it was not the Forward’s role to referee whether an ad was true or not.  He added that refusing an RJC ad would amount to censorship.  To that I replied that refusing ALL RJC ads would be censorship, but rejecting ads that are out and out lies would actually be responsible journalism.

The Forward associate publisher claimed that as the Jewish arm of the Republican Party the RJC and its claims deserved to be heard without a filter.  When I asked him whether that included publishing lies within the paper, Drimer said that the RJC’s claims were “opinion” and not necessarily lies.

Lavin defended the RJC’s calumnies by noting that political discourse in Israel is far more nasty than the content of the RJC ads.  Besides this being America and not Israel, there is far more at stake here in this presidential election than there is when Avigdor Lieberman calls an Arab MK a cancerous growth.

Driver noted that others have complained about the Forward’s acceptance of the ads.  Frankly, I was astonished that the Forward has hired a PR consultant to help them deal with this issue.  It shows they’re running scared.  I think their view is that if they reject the ad they’ll have the RJC screaming bloody murder at them; and if they accept it they’ll have people like me screaming at them.  Who scares them more?  That’s easy.  Shelly Adelson has awfully longer reach than I do.

But maybe the liberal Jewish blogosphere and readers can cause enough of a stink to make Samuel Norich, the publisher reconsider.

Driver attempted to reassure me that my dissenting views of the matter would find a welcome within the pages of the Forward.  I said I would like to publish them there as long as it was an opinion piece and not a letter to the editor.  He urged me to contact Jane Eisner.

Guess what her reply was: we already published a column by Mel Levine on this general issue so your views would be best left to a letter to the editor.  I told her that Levine had not addresses this specific ad in his column; and that his approach was much softer and more diffuse than mine would be.

She replied that while she remained unconvinced that my views deserved a column, I was welcome to write something on spec for Daniel Treiman to review.  Treiman has already been on record in Bintel Brief with a disparaging remark about Tikun Olam.  So I pretty much knew what to expect.  As a writer, you just get tired of writing on spec especially when you’re relatively sure of the negative reception your work will get (despite publishing one short piece there, my work has previously been rejected numerous times).

So there you have it–one of the most liberal Jewish publications is giving a free pass to one of the most hateful Jewish political groups in the land.  And the former doesn’t believe the specific issue of running this ad in their newspaper is newsworthy enough to be discussed in their own main pages.

It should be noted that neither Haaretz nor JTA have even responded to my complaint.

Yesterday night, I wrote about Sarah Palin’s attempt to rehabilitate one of the vilest American anti-Semites of the last century, Westbrook Pegler, by quoting him in her convention acceptance speech.  To my utter amazement, a reader wrote to defend Pegler and attack me.  The reader was Jewish no less.  His name is Justin White, an Israeli-American of the Orthodox right-wing militant persuasion.  But Justin’s story gets even more interesting.  Somewhere along the line he converted to Judaism.

Judaism has a very complicated attitude toward conversion.  At one time long ago, our religion actively proselytized.  And today, one sect, Lubavitch still does.  But Judaism has for so long been a minority religion subject to persecution, that we learned to soft pedal conversion.  We didn’t encourage it, but on the other hand we didn’t refuse anyone who wanted to throw in their lot with us.

Once someone did convert, there were very strict rules insisting that the community embrace baaley teshuva as if they were one of our own.  I’ve always found these dicta to be admirable.

But then a piece of work like Justin comes along and puts all those Jewish teachings sorely to the test.  He began his correspondence with me seeming to challenge the notion that Pegler was an anti-Semite, or at least challenge the notion that Pegler’s attitude toward Jews was as toxic or significant as I’m making it out to be:

Pegler anti-semite?

Wikipedia also says: Pegler, a Catholic, was married to Julia Harpman Pegler, a onetime New York Daily News crime reporter who came from a Jewish family in Tennessee. How do you like that? I had an orthodox conversion in Jerusalem. I could say things about the way Jews behave that are MANY times more acerbic than Mr. Pegler. Stop pretending you are innocent. When you act like an ass people will call you on it. Small towns are the only thing America has going for it.

Gmar Hatima Tova

Isn’t it astonishing that some one who claims to be an Orthodox convert would make the claim that he’s witnessed Jewish behavior “many times” worse than anything Pegler noted? It makes you wonder what kind of Jew this person is. Or perhaps, since he’s adopted the most supremacist, intolerant attidudes of Orthodox Judaism, the “behavior” he’s attacking is that of “so-called” Jews (i.e. the rest of us) who aren’t so kosher (that is, non-Orthodox).

White’s next message upped the ante and the level of vitriol and added with an obscure reference I haven’t yet been able to decipher to “Rabbi Brenda.” I presume he’s attempting to make fun of the fact that women are rabbis in Jewish denominations that are less “manly” than Orthodox Judaism:

sorry, Rabbi Brenda

I suppose it’s being King Snot American Reform Jew and “Rabbi Spinoza” that allows you to pretend you understand derech eretz? No, aside from all of that my friend I come from REAL USA (Virginia, went to UVA). Only after I studied at yeshiva did I realize how much my Hillel buddies hated Judaism because they were taught this from their parents. None of them have Jewish children now (but I’m “not allowed” to say this)? By the way-are you a four year old? Only four year-olds have tantrums (and spoiled Ashkenazim who write for leftist, anti-Jewish magazines who pretend to be “Jewish.”) Some of us know Torah and we aren’t going to be fooled by Rabbi Brenda and her post-Semitic hate rhetoric!

??? ????? ????
if you can read Hebrew..

Justin may’ve studied physics at the Hebrew University, but he still doesn’t understand that if he wants someone to be able to read Hebrew characters included in an e-mail, he has to send the message in html format, and not plain text as he did. I hope his mastery of physics is better than his mastery of e-mail.

Also, isn’t it interesting that he assumes I’m a Reform Jew when I’m not? I also enjoyed the boast about coming from Virginia and being a University of Virginia alum. Thankfully, I know other Jews and Christians from Virginia who give the lie to Justin. Not all of them are as mean-spirited and intolerant as he.

In the following message, you’ll note Justin’s extreme modesty. And if anything comes across as a bit boastful, just know that he could’ve tooted his own horn even louder and the fact that he only tooted it this loud is truly an indication of his humility:

Seinfelder

I am probably the strongest convert of my generation. I am an Israeli citizen for 8 years. I have an exemption from Hebrew from both Tel Aviv and Hebrew University and I studied physics at Hebrew U. I would imagine that you don’t raise money for Orthodox Yeshivot in J-m because that is too Jewish for you. I have been studying ACTUAL Judaism for 15 years, so I doubt you know more than I do (I am glad to write to you in Hebrew as well). If you are writing for Rabbi Brenda’s hate magazine, then I DOUBT you know any Judaism except for kiss Arab ass. Maybe you are an Arab? Do you expect me to leave a note for Rabbi Brenda’s lost-sheep followers? To be crucified by Seinfeld Jews? BTW: I took Sefardic minhag-that is most of the difference you are seeing here. Any Sefaradim writing for you all (I mean ones that weren’t kidnapped as kids)?

Considering he accused me of childish behavior, I wonder how he would characterize his own questioning of my Jewishness.

I’m taking a wild stab in guessing that perhaps White’s reference to “Rabbi Brenda’s hate magazine” may be a reference to Rabbi Michael Lerner’s Tikkun Magazine.  If so, White has become the 100th right wing commenter to confuse this blog with the Magazine.  That too doesn’t speak well to the precision of White’s research technique in his scientific endeavors.

One of the things I find most troubling about Justin White and his conversion is that in becoming a Jew he has absorbed many of the worst qualities of a certain rigid strain of Orthodox Judaism. Of course, it’s entirely possible White was as insufferable before he became a Jew as after.

One of the most loving and powerful stories from the Bible is the Book of Ruth, which is a description of the archetypal Jewish conversion of Ruth to Judaism out of devotion to her mother-in-law, Naomi. This story has a powerful impact on Jewish attitudes toward conversion and converts. It makes us appreciate the sacrifices that someone makes to join our faith. It compels us almost to venerate such a person. But in one fell swoop, Justin White tramples on all the best values that Judaism has to offer: it’s openness, tolerance, advocacy for justice, etc. Instead, he becomes a caricature of the worst that Judaism has to offer. It makes you downright sad.