Rav Dov Fischer

American Jews and Conservatism: Up from Liberalism - The Maturing of an American Community from Knee-Jerk Voting Patterns [published in The American Thinker 07-15-12]

 [Excerpt from full Commentary]  . . . . Once liberalism had set in among American Jews, they naively passed their liberalism down to their kids, much as a century of Southern Democrats passed their Party affiliation to their kids.  Initially, Southern Democrats had voted Democrat because Lincoln, the first Republican President, was their arch-foe when they tried seceding from the Union.  So the Republicans, a liberal anti-slavery party based in the north, were their enemy.  The Democrats were the slave-owners, the racists, the Ku Klux Klan.  Even into the modern era, the worst anti-Black hatred and most intense political segregationism came out of the Democrat Party and their leading racial separatists like Alabama Governor George Wallace and Georgia Governor Lester Maddox. Somehow, even as the national Democrat Party had shifted leftward through the 1930s and beyond, Southern conservatives continued blindly voting for Democrats, voting against interest and belief for decades and decades, not breaking their trance until George McGovern carried the Democrats' standard into the 1972 Presidential elections. Even afterwards, for yet another forty years, Southern conservatives continued electing primarily Democrats to their local state offices throughout the South. As with Christians in the American South, the same irrational voting patterns continue among Jews. [¶] So it is about process and the quirks of the voting system, voting for the party that your parents and grandparents backed, aligning with that party and therefore committing your political aspirations to that party, even as that party no longer represents anything that it stood for a century earlier and today stands for values inimical to your own. Consider: As a core value, Democrats advocate raising taxes on businesses, while Republicans advocate reducing tax pressure on corporations.  The Hollywood community is a haven for Obama fundraising, and he and the Secret Service repeatedly mess up rush-hour traffic in the Greater Los Angeles region as he continues helicoptering in for soirees with the glitz set.  Those Beautiful People back Obama's vision of increasing taxes on business, on the rich, on the "One Percent" -- on them.  But they are not really as selfless as they may seem.  The movie industry has been fleeing Hollywood and now makes more films than ever before outside California, in order to avoid the taxes. . .  .

Always the Jews . . . Not:    

Give the Maniac Some Credit

[published in Jewish World Review 01-11-11]

[Excerpt from full Commentary] In the aftermath of the tragic and evil shooting of United States Representative Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona, American Jewish news sources have entered the conversation by noting that Rep. Giffords is Jewish and that her attacker, Jared Lee Loughner, has associated with extremist hate groups. The suggestion: her tragedy is an act of anti-Semitism. I respectfully beg to differ.  [¶] Jared Lee Loughner is a nut. He has earned by dint of his own merit the privilege of being deemed a 100% crackpot. Yes, he may have had an interface with a hate group whose name I choose not to publicize further, possibly because that group hates Latinos or African Americans or perhaps even people from a distant planet where Loughner perhaps thinks he once lived. (For that matter, perhaps his anger stems from a perception that he has friends living on Pluto, which has been stripped of its planet identity without its input.) Regardless, the search for truth and understanding is not helped by searching endlessly for a Jewish angle in every cockamamie and outlier news event.

Anita Hill and Ginny Thomas: Learning to "Let Go" and to Leave Justice to the True Judge, Judgment to the True Justice [published in Jewish World Review 10-20-10]

"J Street": Why Israel Cannot Abide Jewish Morons Whose "Friendship" Is More Off

[Excerpt from full Commentary] In "J Street," we have yet another gang of Jewish idiots who are more-off, yet moron, in their fulminations against the Jewish State of Israel, a polity they claim to like.

Hollywood Isn't Fair to Jews Either

[Excerpt from full Commentary] There is not a more anti-Jewish industry of publicly traded corporations than the companies who produce Hollywood's entertainment.  They mock Judaism, hold our people and religion to ridicule, and find fault in Israel and everything else we hold dear.  But they get away with it . . . because they are Jews.  Well, it's good for a laugh.

President Obama's Grand Pyramid Scheme:

The "Two-State Solution" as Final Solution

[Excerpt from full Commentary] The Two-State Solution is indeed the most immoral suggestion of them all. It is a lie built on lies. And, with it now having been sanctified in the President's Cairo Speech in Egypt, it can be termed The Grand Pyramid Scheme. . . .[The Commentary consists of ten sections:] (1) The Bigotry of Banning Jews from Living in a Region . . . (2) "Palestine" Is Another Name for Israel, and That Entirety Is the Land that "Palestinian Arabs" Want for Their "Palestine" Country -- Not a "West Bank" Without a Name . . . (3) "Palestinian Refugee Camps" and Logo Images Now Worn by Their Terror Groups Remind That the Goal Remains Now As When the  "P.L.O. -- Palestine Liberation Organization" was founded in 1964: to "Liberate Palestine" by Conquering and Destroying Israel . . . (4) Zionism Humanely Avoided the Moral Failings of America -- the Greatest Beacon of Freedom Ever Created -- by Seeking to Build Fraternally Alongside Landed Neighbors Rather than to Force-and-Death-March Them into "Reservations" of Internal Exile . . . (5) Only One Jewish Homeland: Passionately Loved Without Interruption and Yearned-for Through 2,000 Years of Exile . . . (6) In an Era of Mass Population Exchanges, the Arab World Hatefully Drove out 700,000 Jews and Confiscated All Their Property and Assets, Even as Israelis Pleaded with Their Arab Neighbors to Remain and Build a New Western Democracy Together . . . (7) The Cynicism of the Fabricated "Palestinian Refugee Problem" . . . (8) . . . And the Cynicism of Imposing on Israel a "Two State Solution" Proffered by Three Ambitious Politicians Who Would Abandon America's Long-Term Commitments to a Time-Tested Friend and Ally in Order to Advance Their Own Short-Term Career Goals . . . (9) Pressuring Israel to Abandon Her Security While Turning a Blind Eye, Deaf Ear, and Silent Tongue Towards a Concerted Vitriolic Hate Campaign Against Jews That Has Poisoned Children's Minds and Adults' Hearts Through the Next Generation, Even as the Hate Campaign Materially Has Breached and Thus Has Rendered Void and Nugatory Every Israel-Arab Treaty . . . (10) The Facts on the Ground: Every Israeli Retreat Has Invited Anti-West Arab Terrorists to Arm and Militarize, Rain Unprecedented Destruction, and Launch New Deadly Battle Fronts of Rocket Fire at Israeli Cities That Previously Had Been Secure . . .

Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, Ed McMahon, Billy Mays: Counting the Stars and Numbering the Days

[Excerpt from full Commentary] Michael Jackson’s death set off a veritable panic. It took one of my family members, who works near UCLA, three extra hours to get home because the crowds outside UCLA Medical Center, where Jackson died, were so massive. On the famous Hollywood Walk of Fame, throngs placed wreaths and wept at Michael Jackson’s star on the cement – not realizing that they were mourning at the star of the wrong Michael Jackson, a radio talk show host. [¶] And so, as each element of our media-driven society – the cable news and celebrity-gossip programs in particular – endeavor to keep the stories running, it is worthwhile pausing to ask whether there is anything for us to learn from it all. [¶]  There is. [¶]   Life is short. So terribly short. [¶] Tomorrow is not another day. Tomorrow is a noun that means that today is lost forever. Yesterday, too. There is no tomorrow for even the greatest of celebrities whose time comes. Nor is there a today for those of us who would consume it watching and reading all about them. Our moments to realize our own dreams and hopes are today. . . .

The Arch Holocaust Denier -- and the Encouragement He Offers

[Excerpt from full Commentary] K’vod HaBishop Richard Williamson speaks of his perception that (i) no Jews died in gas chambers, and (ii) “only” 200-300,000 Jews died in concentration camps. [¶] I never before actually have heard someone discuss this thinking. I do not shiver or quake or get shocked by most anything, so my default reaction to this kind of thing is pure fascination. I am struck with fascination by the interview because the guy is so well spoken, so ostensibly knowledgeable. A very nice accent, sounds and looks a bit like Commissioner Gordon on the old "Batman" TV series. Ya just gotta trust Commissioner Gordon. [¶]  I have written about this in the not-too-distant past: My thesis is that I believe it more anti-Semitic – more an act of Jew-hatred – to deny Y’tzi’at Mitzrayim and Ma’amad Har Sinai than to deny that six million died or that Jews died in gas chambers. When you take away from me Y’tzi’at Mitzrayim and Ma’amad Har Sinai, you are taking away from me everything that Jews ever had to live for: the Torah, our unique relationship with HaKadosh Barukh Hu, our role as a Mamlechet Kohanim and an Am S’gulah, our essence. . . . [¶] The Holocaust is not our essence. Ma’amad Har Sinai is our essence.

On Obama, Democrats, Republicans, and

the Futility of Knowing Who Are Friends

[Excerpt from full Commentary] I did not vote for Obama, instead choosing to vote as the exit polls told us that most Jews in Orthodox circles did. Still, I view Obama's election with fascination and a touch of wonder.[¶] . By the natural course of events, Obama should never have been elected or, frankly, even nominated. Historians will not understand it. Nevertheless, he now is the President-elect, and we will recite the same blessing in Shul for his welfare and that of his Government as we have recited for his predecessors. [¶] I am long past predicting who among the princes of flesh-and-blood is good for Israel and who bad. I vote based on commonsense natural analyses, but I know I can be wrong because good politicians can fool you, and so can bad ones. I know that all we can do is vote based on what we reasonably expect. But, in the end, it is all in Hashem's hands. Politicians often surprise.[¶] Our parents' generation bullet-voted for FDR, whom they regarded as the best American friend that Jews ever had in the White House. Turns out he and his State Department were not our best friends. Rather, they hated us and in some real measure were accessories to the mass murder of six million of us.[¶] Democrats-Republicans. We don't know. Nixon rushed weapons to Israel in an full-blast urgent airlift. Bill Clinton gave us Oslo and Arafat.[¶] Shalom Chaver.

[Excerpt from full Commentary] As our nation compromises aspects of our financial and political independence, by standing on line for overpriced Saudi oil, in deference to the caribou, too many among us know preciously nothing about why we risk aspects of our security and financial independence. Ask your neighbor whether “caribou” is animal, vegetable, or mineral. Yet, by passively delimiting exploratory access to our expansive domestic oil sources without concomitantly reducing our energy demand to accommodate Tom Daschle’s concern for the caribou, we partly finance the economy of a country like Saudi Arabia that breeds in its children a deadly hatred against our civilization of freedom. . . .

[Excerpt from full Commentary] Unexpectedly, I found myself traveling on the freeways most of last Wednesday, when the Michael Jackson story erupted into a media feeding frenzy. No matter the talk station, the conversation was salacious, incendiary, and vicious. . . . [¶]  So I do not know whether Michael Jackson dunnit. And, on a much deeper level, I do not care. I do not associate with Michael Jackson; odds are I will never meet him. The chances that he would invite my pre-adolescent son to spend a night at his ranch are less-than-nil. And — most important here — the chances that, if invited, my son actually would spend a night at Neverland were, are, and always will be, never. . . . [¶] And that's the discussion the media should be having about the Michael Jackson issue. What parents would allow their child, in the aftermath of prior scandalous allegations and a mega-million-dollar out-of-court settlement, to spend private time with Michael Jackson? . . .