12 thoughts on “Not Since Rome Ruled Have They Destroyed Sukkah in Jerusalem; Palestinian Baby Suffocates on Tear Gas – Tikun Olam תיקון עולם إصلاح العالم
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  1. “Why bother going to the synagogue at all if you are so blind to the suffering of others, if you are living a lie? I know I’ll never understand.”

    David Shulman shouldn’t be surprised.

    Well, it’s a long standing Jewish tradition. Jews who don’t keep shabbat, eat non-kosher, sleep around, and do various other infractions of the Jewish codes turn up in their masses every year and shout out confessing their worst sins and then carry on as usual as soon as they get home or even sooner! It’s part of a collective “no one’s perfect” philosophy that defies logic. I’m also part of it and I suspect David Shulman is too.

    But I wonder how many of us notice the often repeated liturgical theme: “Ashamnu micol am, boshnu micol dor (we have sinned more than all peoples, we are ashamed more than all nations)”. I think David may have missed this, Jews are well aware of their shortcommings and are not ashamed to shout them out in public – I sometimes wish other peoples could also see their own wrongs as clearly as we do ours, but we don’t hear them so much, they prefer to see only ours.

    1. Shmuel)
      “I sometimes wish other peoples could also see their own wrongs as clearly as we do ours, but we don’t hear them much, they prefer to see only ours”.

      Wow, you managed to express it all in only 2-3 lines.

      1. The very ethnocentric notion of Jewish exceptionalism (‘we’re maybe not more perfect than others, but as we are more aware of our lack of perfection, in fact that makes us more perfect’).

      2. The accusation of anti-semitism (‘they only see ours’);

      You just missed the essential point of relating this moral superiority to Israel’s behaviour – ‘we are behaving in a very cruel way towards the Palestinians, but at least we are aware of that’ – and ‘the rest of the world’s critique is merely an expression of asking more from the Jews’.

      I didn’t know the degree of morality came along with ethnic and/or religious belonging. By the way, what do you know about other “people’s” way of perceiving their own shortcomings ?? Is that a course you can take in shul on “We versus the Others” or what ?

      1. 1. The very ethnocentric notion of Jewish exceptionalism (‘we’re maybe not more perfect than others, but as we are more aware of our lack of perfection, in fact that makes us more perfect’).

        2. The accusation of anti-semitism (‘they only see ours’)

        I find both you and him ironic. Him, for the reasons you mentioned above, and you, because you criticize accusations of anti-semitism, yet attribute “the ethnocentric notion of Jewish exceptionalism” to all Jews.

        1. # shai]
          Where do you see my attribution of ‘the ethnocentric notion of Jewish exceptionalism’ to all Jews ??

          I was strictly sticking to Shmuel’s comments. He talks about ‘we’ and ‘they’, and pretends there is a kind of common ethnic/religious denomminator on moral issues which I totally disagree with. At least that’s what I intended to express.
          Culture, religion, socio-economic backgrounds etc of course have an influence on your world vision, but you might as well react against your social upbringing as reproduce it, and I really don’t believe in any ethnico-religious determinism . . . and yet, maybe I do. Reading some of those right-wingers coming around here recently, they might be influenced by environmental brainwashing after all.

    2. Besides, the prayer fragment that you cited is treated by many just the same way as the rest of the liturgy — a lip service that is paid quickly and does not interfere with doing all the bad things throughout the year.
      And by the way, “boshnu mi-kol dor” is “we are ashamed more than every generation.”

    3. LOL! So, one of the many ways Jews are superior to all other peoples is that they are aware of their shortcomings and will admit them publicly.

      How can one respond when self-congratulation reaches that level?

  2. [comment deleted for comment rule violation–consider yourself warned, the next violation will lead to termination of your commenting privileges]

  3. Here is the latest update (as of Sunday A.M. ) in Israel about the situation there:

    http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/jerusalem-police-remain-on-alert-after-holiday-rioting-1.315514

    No mention of any dead baby. At least one of the the sources of information you are using (I believe it is one of the peole at “972”) has , as I recall, reported in the past an incident of an Arab being killed at Bat Ayin which purportedly took place as “vengeance” for a killing of a child resident there. The report was false.

    On another vein: Here, J-Street has finally admitted that George Soros is one of their major donors. They tried to keep it secret for a long time. Why?

    http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/billionaire-george-soros-revealed-as-mystery-j-street-donor-1.315700

    1. Maan reported the dead baby and named the child as well. If you have a problem, take it up w. them. And man, would you at least read the links I insert so that you know what you’re talking about. 972 didn’t report the dead baby at all. It would save us all a lot of wasted time & energy if you only speculated after actually reading the links I offer. The fact that you don’t makes you an inferior advocate for yr position & points out how lazy you are.

      As for George Soros & J St. I could care less. But when you get as angry about Republican 504 groups hiding their donors lists then I’ll join you in being angry at J St.

      1. But when you get as angry about Republican 504 groups hiding their donors lists then I’ll join you in being angry at J St.

        Perhaps you don’t really mean this, but I’ve seen you condition your criticism on others’ criticism many, many times. Perhaps you only mean it figuratively so, but I still find it disturbing.

        I don’t wait for the Palestinians to be angry about Hamas when Israel carries out its own share of disasters… each is worthy of condemnation regardless of the other.

        Perhaps it is most disturbing for me, because I loathe relativism and to see it used to further a stance is bothering.

        1. You think I should be outraged that George Soros has given $750K to J St. over the past 3 yrs (& only 8% of its revenues instead of the 33% which the Washington Times claimed)??? Why? I wish he’d given more. Now, when that hypocrite tells me he’s opposed to Republican 504 groups doing the same exact thing, THEN he can tallk.

          Stop the whining about relativism & other such nonsense.

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