One of my informants provides the welcome news that Masada2000 is down once again. And it couldn’t have happened to a more deserving hate site. Unfortunately, I can’t tell whether his web host or his domain registrar took him down.
Two rabbis in a tub: M2K’s homophobic attack on Michael Lerner and Zalman Schachter, who ordained himDoing some research the other day, I discovered that the site owner actually threatened and harassed Michael Lerner according to In These Times:
In May [2001]…Masada2000 listed Lerner as one of “the five most dangerous Jewish enemies of the Jewish people,” and posted detailed driving directions to his home address. Draped in guillotines, nooses and racist language, the site repeatedly stated: “If you’re ever in the San Francisco area, drop in on him at his home.”
Predictably, the death threats and hate e-mails started pouring in–more than 60 to date. Late-night calls also drastically increased. “Both my wife and I were extremely scared,” Lerner says.
So when the same bully threatened in a comment to this blog “We are going to have fun sewing your foreskin back on, Dickie” I felt I was in good company. Like Lerner, I reported the threat to the local authorities in order to have a police record of his brutishness.
With his fake blog intended to harass me taken down by Blogger after multiple DMCA violations and now Masada2000 down, the air’s smelling a whole lot nicer.
Returning to Lerner, it’s interesting to see that no less a Jewish “eminence” than Cynthia Ozick has adopted Masada2000’s views of Lerner (though with a tad more literary elegance). At the recent CAMERA conference, whose purpose was to ferret out Jewish “defamers” of Israel, Ozick called Lerner to task (Ben Harris called it a “tour de force” denunciation though that phrase says more about Harris’ sympathetic views of Ozick than it does about the actual quality of her argument) for being defamer number 1 on the Jewish far-right’s list. In fact, her speech could’ve been titled “Michael Lerner: How Do I Hate Thee, Let Me Count the Ways:”
Ozick reserved particular vitriol for Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor of the left-wing journal Tikkun and a frequent critic of Israel.
After ridiculing him as a “garrulous mime,” questioning the validity of his rabbinical ordination, and slapping him with a flurry of unflattering adjectives — chaotic, disorganized, self-contradictory, puerile, and unbearably long-winded, to name but a few — Ozick accused the yarmulke-wearing rabbi of providing Jewish sanction to some of Israel’s most implacable foes.
“Only imagine Karl Marx davening and you will comprehend the dazzlement of Rabbi Lerner’s current achievement,” Ozick said.
Lerner is “one of a growing band of ambitious, self-touting Jews whose hostility to the State of Israel more and more takes on the character of the spite that kills,” she said. “The noise they make they call a silencing. The debate they attract they call a censoring.”
I rather like “garrulous mime” as I too find qualities of Lerner which are annoying or self-defeating (“defaming Israel” is certainly NOT one of them) including his propensity for pomposity, self-regard and volubility. But to mention Michael Lerner in the same breath with Karl Marx only shows how pathetically deluded Ozick is and how hysterical her political world view is. The fact that she and Masada2000 share the same view of Lerner tells us reams about Ozick and CAMERA and almost nothing about Lerner.
I agree with you about Michael Lerner’s personal quirks. However for Ozick to say he hates Israel is intellectually dishonest. Lerner says and writes every chance he gets that he loves Israel and his only son served in the Israeli military – and that he is proud of that.
Too bad about Ozick. I used to like her fiction and her essays on writing fiction. I felt she had a heart I could relate to. Her recent hysteria strikes me as a spiritual and intellectual regression for her. Some people (Daniel Pipes) started out and continue in life unevolved. I think of Ozick as having a spiritual connection that leads me to expect more of her than this.
I’ve followed her writing for a long time though I stopped quite a while ago. There’s no doubt that she’s a gifted writer and elegant stylist. In fact, her sense of style & politics remind me to some extent of Leon Wieseltier, TNR’s culture critic. But she’s shared Saul Bellow’s Commentary-oriented politics for a long time I’m afraid. It’s sort of hide-bound as Phil Weiss’ description of the event attendees bears out.
Cynthia Ozick is a very bright woman and very perceptive. While she may have blindspots about Israel, her concern about the hysteria against Israel and Jewish Americans is not unfounded. You yourself Richard have blind spots. Your arrogance is increasing weekly. Shall we count the ways that you annoy us as you do with Lerner?
It is interesting to see how you compare Ozick to the mentally unstable lads at masada2000, and then take her to task for comparing Lerner to Marx. Do you not see the hypocrisy? Your comment tells us reams about Richard Silverstein.
I consider myself a political ally (most of the time) of Lerner & speak freely about what I see as his weak spots. You sir are no ally of mine & the fact that I annoy you not only doesn’t distress me, on the contrary…
Hey speak for yourself Rubino. There are alot of us that appreciate Silverstein’s efforts here.
Richard,
If this is how you treat your “allies” than it is no wonder you are so obnoxious to those who positions you disagree with. You inability to acknowledge any shortcomings in your earlier post reveals even more about your person. You have no idea of my positions, so you cannot say whether or not I am an idealogical ally of yours. As it happens I have very similar positions as yours. But please, do not think of me as an ally. I see how you treat allies and I want nothing to do with it.
I call ’em as I see ’em. Many progressive Jews both value Lerner and criticize him as I do. Unlike you apparently I maintain a critical perspective on people & political issues. I can pick & choose what I like or agree w. regarding many Jewish figures.
Point to something online you have written that elucidates yr views & allow me & my readers to judge for ourselves. Till then I have only yr word to prove it & given the insults of yr previous comment yr credibility isn’t terribly high.
What a silly post. Smearing Ozick w/Masada 2000 is like smearing you with David Duke.
Guilt by association is a cheap trick that only desperate polemicists resort to – esepecially when they’re arguments are at their weakest.
Richard, you call yourself a progressive Zionist – so why is it so hard to understand that hypercritics of Israel, like the self-appointed Lerner, damage Zionism with their biassed & self-serving propoganda?
Shalom,
Liat S. – Tel Aviv
Silly wouldn’t begin to describe yr comment. It is wholly appropriate to compare Ozick & M2K because they have a similar hysterical streak when it comes to describing supporters of Israel who are willing to criticize it for its own good. Just as an example, Ozick attempted to disparage Lerner’s smicha which he gained through an entirely halachically valid ordination process. Guess what M2K tried to do a bit more luridly in the doctored image above? Smear Lerner’s smicha. As they say…birds of a feather flock together…
On the other hand, I have nothing in common with David Duke & comparing me to him would only show you to be a fool.
Since you’ve described Lerner as “hypercritic” allow me to call all Ozick & M2K hyperhysterics or hyperpatriots.
You really seem to have a lot of personal enmity with the Masada2000 webmaster. Regardless, his site is back up and has been for a while.
I find it strange that he’d bounce hosting sites so often…the Jewish Task Force site has been working continuously for years (as the jtfarchive.org attests).
Gee, dya think…Me and the 7,000 other Jews he’s defamed at his site. I’d guess Michael Lerner might have quite a bit of that as well considering that the M2K chnyuk advocated that people go to Michael’s house and kill him.
I know the site is up. But he’s left himself vulnerable to future takedowns in ways I won’t discuss here.
If JTF posted pornographic images, called for the rape of Jewish female rabbis, and publicly featured the personal e mail addresses of 7,000 Jews then you might have a harder time of it as well. Not that the JTF forum doesn’t make every attempt to be equally as noxious. If one of the posters there had their way I’d have cancer of the rectum. Real klal yisrael.
Cynthia Ozick!!
Has anyone managed to get through one of her GOD awful books?
A clown and a NON writer!