If you want to know why supporting Israel — in any meaningful sense of the term — has to be different from supporting Likud/Netanyahu, check this out from Goldberg. (If you don’t think that supporting Israel in any context is a good idea — well, we disagree, but you can still marvel at the Netanyahu administration’s truly impressive, the-wheel-is-spinning-but-the-hamster’s-dead stupidity.) Golberg’s concluding passage:
The idea, communicated in these ads [created by the Netanyahu govt. for American TV], that America is no place for a proper Jew, and that a Jew who is concerned about the Jewish future should live in Israel, is archaic, and also chutzpadik (if you don’t mind me resorting to the vernacular). The message is: Dear American Jews, thank you for lobbying for American defense aid (and what a great show you put on at the AIPAC convention every year!) but, please, stay away from our sons and daughters.
Let me go further: not only is this latest absurdity proof that there is a vast gulf between a commitment to Israel and a defense of its current government — the two are actually in conflict. Likud and Netanyahu and their further-right allies are doing lots of things that I think weigh down the long-term prospects for Israel’s survival. But I have to say that if they want to make things worse much sooner, potentially alienating a significant fraction of the most committed American supporters of Israel is a pretty good way to go about it.
To steal a term: Morans!
Image: Jozef Israëls,A Jewish Wedding, 1903
BGinCHI
To paraphrase Woody Allen:
“Netanyahu and the Likud have no concept of the state of Israel. At times they were blowing into it.”
Monkey Business
As an American Reform Jew, I find myself more and more distant from Israel, politically speaking.
First, they said I wasn’t a Jew because I’m Reform. Now, they’re saying that I’m REALLY not a Jew, because I’m not living in Israel.
AIPAC wasn’t getting my money anyway. Now they’re REALLY not getting my money.
Steve
I showed the ads to a work colleague who is a mildly religious Jew, but understands Hebrew and gets the culture better than I do. (I am an utterly non-religious Jew.) He wasn’t really offended and he didn’t see them as negative towards America in the same sense as Goldberg. He seemed to view the ads as fairly standard stuff, along the same lines as the long-standing Israeli campaigns to encourage aliyah and so forth. I’m not saying I agree with him but I think the perspective is valid.
The takeaway from this story for a lot of folks who aren’t Jewish and don’t have much interest in these religious/cultural issues is likely to be “oh, there goes that far-right Netanyahu government again doing crazy stuff.” Without being an apologist for Netanyahu, I think that’s probably an oversimplification.
The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik
@Monkey Business:
This, I imagine, is probably a lot lot more common than most Likudniks and Christian Zionists want to believe. I don’t want to speak for them, but what Jews I have discussed this kind of stuff with seem to be far ahead of the curve as far as the wall between actual meaningful support for Israel and simple blind support for the Israeli gov’t, especially when it comes to Likud.
Not that you’ll ever know looking in from this country, of course. But hell, there’s more critical coverage and editorializing of Bibi in Haaretz than there is allowed in US papers.
DougJ
Goldberg is not Likud. I read his blog sometimes and I agree with him at least half the time. He’s an asshole and a war-monger, but he’s not that far right.
Tom Levenson
@Steve: Speaking as an American Jew raised and bar-mitzvahed in a (modern, and quite liberal) Orthodox synagogue, I’m going to have to disagree with your friend here. But, as always, YMMV.
superluminar
I have a feeling you may have just sent out the batshit signal…she will come.
KnaveRupe
Tom: It’s ok to agree periodically with Jeff Goldberg. It’s when you find yourself agreeing with Jonah that you have to worry.
4jkb4ia
That first ad was saying that Americans won’t know what it is to be Israeli in their kishkes(OK, Yiddish word). Yom haZikaron isn’t in America what it is in Israel and it can’t be. Everyone in America does not know a soldier and the whole country does not come to a halt at one siren. And there is of course the emotional manipulation of appreciating those who died that is not unknown to country songs here. The idea of the Christmas ad was so blatant I didn’t even watch it.
I was afraid the Netanyahu government was telling native-born Israelis not to marry American Jews living in Israel. Fortunately it wasn’t that bad.
Professor
@Tom Levenson: And you’ll be labeled a ‘self hating Jew’!
Samara Morgan
Is it really possible that neither you or Goldberg realize that Israeli jewesses cannot marry outside their faith in Israel?
Its illegal.
kth
Pronounced “chute’s paddock” by Netanyahu’s allies in the House of Representatives.
4jkb4ia
It’s not archaic to say that Israel is a different place from the rest of the Jewish world after 60 years. Zionism was supposed to be about creating something new.
It’s possible that in the bubble that the Netanyahu government is in they think that the most steadfast supporters of Israel in the United States aspire to live in Israel themselves. There is no room for someone who maybe went on a Birthright trip and is impressed by what they saw even if they don’t think Israel is home.
Steve
@Tom Levenson: I recognize that people have different perspectives on this, and of course Jews never agree with each other anyway. My friend has 4 kids and he finds it is often quite difficult to raise them Jewish, even in the presence of a very strong Jewish community in Brooklyn. He thinks the Christmas ad is sort of true, like it or not. I gotta say, considering today would be the 93rd birthday of my late Jewish grandmother, the skillful use of Jewish guilt in that ad is pretty classic.
(By the way, does anyone know how many Jewish grandmothers it takes to change a lightbulb? None. “Oh, I don’t mind the dark, don’t worry about me.”)
El Cruzado
@DougJ: I don’t read the guy consistently, and I certainly don’t agree with him on much, but I got the impression that he’s been gradually distancing himself from the increasingly extremist/brain-damaged Israeli right for a while.
We’re getting into Even Israeli Supporter Jeffrey Goldberg Says… territory here.
Steve
@Samara Morgan: It’s illegal? What on earth are you talking about? Israel does not have civil marriage for anyone.
Joel
@Steve: I’ve been lectured – by evangelicals of all things – on my lack of jewish identity. Crap like these Likud ads are more of the same.
@DougJ: Agreed. I find myself agreeing with Goldberg on a lot – probably most issues. However, I disagree with him in critical areas (i.e. Iraq, Iran, etc.). That said, he’s at least got some self-awareness.
Everyone in the Pool
It isn’t anti-Semitic to see the handwriting on the wall; after the oil runs out, America will lose interest and Israel, being at heart another Western colonial intrusion into the ME, will be beleaguered and eventually overrun by it’s neighbors, most of whom don’t love the West very much.
4jkb4ia
SM, that’s because the Orthodox rabbinate controls marriages and it’s a whole different issue. Goldberg was not implying that the spouse wasn’t Jewish.
RP
As an American Jew, all I can say to Netanyahu and his government is: GFY.
The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik
@4jkb4ia:
That’s the funniest thing about it all. The most ardent Zionists in this country are probably the Evangelicals that just want an Israel that can be offered as a sacrifice for the coming of the Rapture.
kindness
Ahhh….to be called schmucks by our allies. The very same ones who are trying to overthrow the current democratically elected administration.
Good times.
#netanyahublowsalot
Steve
@Joel: I’ve been lectured by Jews (and I resented it tremendously) but wow, never by Christians!
Roger Moore
@Everyone in the Pool:
After the oil runs out, Israel’s neighbors will have much more significant problems to worry about than Israel, like how they’re going to run their countries without oil money. My gut feeling is that their armies are going to be too busy protecting their governments from the mobs in the streets- or overthrowing those governments- to spend much thought on Israel.
Paul in KY
@Steve: I think she is saying that a female Israeli Jew (within the boundary of Israel) cannot legally marry a non-Jewish man.
Whether that is correct or not, I don’t know.
Roger Moore
@Samara Morgan:
Do not use this word unless you wish to be labeled as an antisemite. I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you just don’t realize how much baggage it has, but that’s already going pretty far.
trollhattan
I’m probably the only one wondering about the time-traveling Abe Lincoln painting, so carry on.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
Do Republicans who support Israel realize that they’re one of the most soci@list nations on earth (kibbutz anyone?) with an individual mandate to carry health insurance and compulsory military service?
Could you imagine how the Republicans would scream if they were subjected to an individual mandate on health insurance and were forced to fight the wars they agitated for?
Paul in KY
@Everyone in the Pool: Ain’t no country in the Middle East gonna run Israel off. They are by far the strongest military power in the region. Oil or no oil, Israel is here to stay (IMO).
Paul in KY
@Roger Moore: I think that was the way Gollum would have said it.
superluminar
@Roger Moore
I’m pretty sure she’d wear it as a badge of honour.
Samara Morgan
@Paul in KY: its correct. an Israeli friend told me, and he seemed rather ashamed.
@Paul in KY: they can be starved out.
check out the gas pipeline.
and you are clueless if you think Israel will last 10 sec without Amerikkka backing them up.
Samara Morgan
@Roger Moore: i can use muslimah but not jewess? WTF?
Roger Moore
@Samara Morgan:
FTFY. As long as Israel maintains nuclear superiority, their neighbors are going to be very wary about messing with them.
Samara Morgan
@Steve: yup, and no rabbi will marry a jewess to anyone other than a male jew.
it cant be done.
so much for freedom of religion in the Only Democracy in the MidEast.
Punchy
I understand very little of this post or the comments. And I’m married to a Jewish woman. I couldnt diffentiate Likud from Lemonade, the West Bank from the West Coast.
I think it’s safer not to have an opinion at all on any of this…
4jkb4ia
I’m actually not offended by that one. “Jewess” was reclaimed as the title of someone’s blog, which I’m not sure is still going.
(It is, and got taken in by Canonist.)
kindness
@Samara Morgan: Dear Samara, Other religions do exist in Israel and one can always obtain a holy man other than a Rabbi. You really do come off as a bigot you may or may not realize.
Samara Morgan
@Roger Moore: doubt that. didnt you read the link?
and nukes dont deter suicide commandos or qassams, do they?
Dork
Really? You gotta riff Ice Cube to get attention on this blog?
I cant believe, today was a good day.
Mark F
Israel does not have civil marriage. All marriage is done by the various religious authorities. No Jewish, Christian, or Muslim group allows intermarriage.
Solution – fly or take a boat trip to Cyprus and get married civilly. Israel will then recognize that.
Xenos
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford:
This is the whole point for modern ‘conservatives’ — Sokialism me and mine, and not for thee and thine. In-groups get a sokialist, state-subsidized paradise, out-groups get to starve under the bridges.
salacious crumb
There was a time when I would have differentiated between Israel and the Likud party. But most Israelis have lurched so right ward that its a stretch to differentiate between their thoughts and Netanyahu’s policies. Most Israelis now support the expansion of settlements, want Jerusalem as capital of Israel and hardly raise a voice against the systematic looting and confiscation of Palestinian farms and land. Even 15 years ago, I would have said they were against this. But now I am not so sure. I read Haaretz and Jpost and other publications and aside from a few prominent writers and academics, so hardly see any protest against confiscation of Palestinian land or questions raised regd the threats to Iran.
ornery
@DougJ: Do ya’ll have something going on with the Atlantic that might be mentioned in the interest of full disclosure?
Karen
This is my response to Israel who thinks American Jewish money is good enough to take but we’re not really Jewish enough for them?
“Geh kocken offen yom!”
“Go take a shit in the ocean!”
Your Yiddish translation for the day.
Samara Morgan
@kindness: but then it is not a marriage recognized by judaism. and their children wont be jews, because of matrilineal descent.
My Israeli friend explained that all to me.
daveNYC
@kindness:
I wouldn’t call her a bigot, more a clueless fuck who bullshits out new and exciting ‘facts’ to back up her crazy.
She’s also working on a m_c dictionary which will help explain why her definitons of ‘freedom of religion’ and ‘democracy’ are completely different from everyone else’s on the planet.
Roger Moore
@Samara Morgan:
Two points:
1) You’re free to talk about yourself and your group with any term you choose, even if it would be derogatory were somebody else to use it. When you talk about another group, it’s wise to use a polite term so that people don’t immediately assume you’re a jackass.
2) Jewess has specific antisemitic overtones that you might not be aware of. Most Jews (unless they’re women specifically trying to reclaim the term) would talk about “Jewish women” instead of “jewesses”. If you keep using it, you’ll be treated about the same way a white person who uses “nigger” to talk about black people.
Schlemizel
Likud, like the 1% are so intent on making everything their way at this very moment that they do not see they are sewing the seeds of their won destruction. And, also similar, they are going to take a very large number of people down with them. For the 1% it will be the Western world the Likud is just going to destroy Israel. In both cases they have the full support of the wingnuts and the Christianist terrorists.
gwangung
@daveNYC:
I would.
debbie
Perhaps it’s my self-hatingness here, but I’ll never support Israel until Netanyahu, Lieberman, et al. are history.
debbie
Wow, I just read the first sentence of the link,
and it’s frighteningly similar to what was being said back in Germany in the early 1930s (read “In the Garden of Beasts” and see for yourself).
Paul in KY
@kindness: Will the state of Israel recognize the marriage? One between a female Jew & a male christian, done by a preacher within Israel (on a Tuesday)?
Pococurante
You must not read Jeff regularly. I do, and I can tell you he has been vociferously critical of the Israeli government for a number of years now.
But then you said “Israel” not “Israeli government”. Jeff Goldberg distinguishes between a vibrant multi-varied country and the idiots from a single faction/party who are currently running the show.
Do you?
Paul in KY
@Samara Morgan: If the nuke wipes out all potential suicide bombers (and non-potential ones as well), then it probably does have some deterrent ability.
Steve
@Samara Morgan: This is just getting flat-out anti-semitic.
scav
I can only assume loko’s Israeli friend was driving a taxi at the time.
Mnemosyne
@gwangung:
So would I, especially once you get yet another gander at her extremely weird and unsupported belief that black people are dumber than white people even when she’s been provided with reams of evidence that the “research” she cites is all bullshit.
Everyone in the Pool
@RogerMoore
Of course. And there will be “hell to pay” for some unpopular regimes. Rightly so.
But eventually the dust will settle, and the freshly liberated and now self-assured Arabs will turn their eyes toward the last Western colony, the source of much Arab humiliation. It’s doubtful that Israel will remain as currently envisioned.
IOW, Israel will either become a truly secular state with a Muslim majority, or it will cease to exist as an independent nation.
Everyone in the Pool
@Paul in KY
I agree, in the present tense.
That’s more a declaration of allegiance then a wise prediction.
MTiffany
Israel, aka “The
HolyHolier Than Thou Land”El Cid
There’s not really a significant “Not Likud” in Israel these days; I think people want to believe that there’s some non-Likud of the opposition that they wish there were. There isn’t really any such right now. What I hear people all the time describe as (with the best of intentions toward hoping for a sane Israeli political establishment) “Likud” makes it sound like there’s something else waiting in the wings or which recently had drastically different policies. Instead, we’re talking about a core crisis of the Israeli political power establishment*, and not just (though that too) a particularly rotten manifestation of it.
[* Well, truly, a “crisis” only for those looking at the prospects of continuing and worsening horror as a bad thing whether or not it can keep stably proceeding for a long time.]
Paul in KY
@Everyone in the Pool: Yeah, cause anyone who’s read my posts on Israel (at Greenwald’s, Salon, here, Steve Gilliard’s old blog, etc.) knows I’m an Israeli firster.
(snicker)
Maus
Nah, the Christians aren’t concerned.
batgirl
@Samara Morgan: Actually in the case you are describing, a Jewish woman marrying a non-Jew, the children are Jewish because of matrilineal descent. It should also be pointed out that an Israeli rabbi will not marry a Jewish man and a non-Jewish woman. As others have pointed out above, in Israel there is no civil marriage, only religious marriage so find me an imam who will marry an Israeli Muslim and non-Muslim. FSM, I don’t know why I’m responding to you.
batgirl
@Paul in KY: The state will recognize civil and interfaith marriages performed outside of the state. I do not know, (1) if there is a preacher in Israel that would perform an interfaith service, and (2) if he/she did, if the state would recognize that. Can anyone else her answer that.
I also think that Israel will recognize a same-sex marriage performed abroad. But remember we are talking about the difference between civil recognition and religious recognition.
Everyone in the Pool
@Paul
Oh, I wasn’t intending to accuse you of being a partisan. I was trying to be diplomatic. And that’s the problem with euphemistic phrasing.
But if humanity had a dime for every time someone said “X will never change….”
gil mann
@Dork:
She didn’t even have to use her AFAIK
Maus
@Dork: It’s not taken from Ice Cube, it’s taken from the same sort of retards who say MICRO$HAFT, FAUX SNOOSE, BU$$HITLER, kissin’ cousins of the retarded righties who say OBUMMER and BAQUACK OBAMAILURE.
geg6
@gwangung:
Oh, yeah. Me, too. Bigot and stupid on top of it all. Of course, those two things do correlate quite a bit.
Barry
@Steve: “(By the way, does anyone know how many Jewish grandmothers it takes to change a lightbulb? None. “Oh, I don’t mind the dark, don’t worry about me.”)”
Hah! A *real* Jewish grandmother says ‘don’t worry about me, I’ll just sit here in the dark, thinking about the 47 agonizing hours of labor I went through to give you life……’.
Barry
@The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik: “That’s the funniest thing about it all. The most ardent Zionists in this country are probably the Evangelicals that just want an Israel that can be offered as a sacrifice for the coming of the Rapture.”
Yes, when the strange tribe washes and perfumes you, and gives you a white robe, and the best of the food, and then leads you to a hilltop with the people singing and throwing flowers, it’s possibly *not* to worship you as their White God.
Barry
@Pococurante: “But then you said “Israel” not “Israeli government”. Jeff Goldberg distinguishes between a vibrant multi-varied country and the idiots from a single faction/party who are currently running the show.”
Since when have the right-wing whackjobs in Israel *not* been running the show?
chopper
@Maus:
is he, perchance, related to HITLERY KKKLINTOON?
eemom
I’ve always thought Jeffrey Goldberg was unfairly maligned here, and once had a heated argument with DougJ over it that almost drove me off this blog. As far as I know, his number one crime was cheerleading the Iraq war in 2003 — which plenty of other people, including Cole and DougJ, also did and have since been forgiven for.
I am not a regular reader of his, but what I have read of his writings on Israel always strikes me as thoughtful and nuanced. He absolutely recognizes and does justice to the conflicting views within Israel. Also, he did a psychological portrait of Netanyahu a while back that I thought was very interesting and important for anyone who really wants to understand who the man is and where he’s coming from, rather than simply demonizing him. For example, the fact that he is dominated by his 100 year old father who is one of the hardest-line old Zionists still living.
Maus
@Barry:
Yeah, but if you know without a doubt that there’s zero chance of a rapture occurring, you would probably get fat on all the donations and accept the unquestioning political support for your every action. Why not get the god-treatment?
eemom
btw, I’m sure I’ll get tons of love for this,but I would love to see a regular series of posts by Tom on Israel on which only Jewish people — religious, nonreligious, “self-hating” or otherwise — are allowed to comment.
That would exclude me, but I would very much enjoy reading a discussion of Israel that didn’t feature vile comparisons to Nazis and sanctimonious tongue-clucking about why those Jews didn’t LEARN anything from the Holocaust.
Omnes Omnibus
@ eemom: toko would still chime in.
eemom
@Omnes Omnibus:
She’ll need to convert to Jewessism first.
‘course, then the Mossad would likely track her down and recruit her for Bibi’s teevee ad — thus ensuring its success beyond his wildest dreams.
Djur
eemom: Some of the most high-handed, outrageous comparisons of Israel to the Nazis I’ve ever heard have been from Jews, so I don’t think you’d achieve your goal there.
How about this: mandatory Godwin enforcement. No invocation of Hitler or the Holocaust, regardless of the use to which it’s being put.
Joseph Nobles
@eemom: Plus he’s got his brother Yonatan who died in Operation Entebbe hanging over his shoulder as well.
Let’s try switching the Christmas ad around:
A young family (husband, wife, and daughter) sits in a kitchen in front of a computer. Through the window, the Dome of the Rock can be seen.
On the computer screen, an older couple with Easter decorations in the background. Everyone’s smiling.
GRANDMA: How’s my granddaughter doing?
GRANDDAUGHTER: Really great!
GRANDMA: And what holiday are you looking forward to??
GRANDDAUGHTER: (excited) PASSOVER!
All the adults look at each other, shocked.
I would find that an awful ad to play in Israel, and I can’t understand why the Christmas ad isn’t seen as the same thing.
The classic expatriate Jew story in the Bible is Joseph. However, instead of guilt and superiority, that story demonstrates the good faith of Joseph’s brothers that they finally learned after selling him into slavery. Joseph sets up exactly the same test for them, giving them an opportunity to desert Benjamin, and indeed, be blameless in this one, but Judah will have none of it. The one who led his brothers in selling Joseph offers up himself to atone for Benjamin’s “crime.” At that, Joseph knows he can come home again and reveals himself.
An ad campaign like that would be stellar, wouldn’t it? “Come home to Israel. We want to make things right again.” Well, it’s not likely to come out of this particular administration, but maybe fortunes will shift.
Tom Levenson
@Djur: @eemom:
Dear Eemom. What have I ever done to you that you would wish on me the task of becoming a regular Israel blogger? ;)
Seriously: I don’t write much about Israel because I do not have detailed knowledge of a lot of the stuff I might write about, and though I am of very much a Jewish (and Zionist) background, and am both a synagogue member and a self-identified Jewish atheist, I don’t choose to write very much out of that particular aspect of my identity.
I’m sure the Jewish knowledge I possess, the memories of particular experience and the rhythms of particular Jewish/Hebrew/Yiddish language and narratives influence me and my writing in all kinds of ways. But that doesn’t make me an Israel expert, or even one with the reportorial knowledge to cover the beat. So I’ll continue to occasionally fling a post over the transom, but I don’t think it wise or fun to make a habit of it.
Tom Levenson
@Joseph Nobles: You know who else married a non-Jew?
Moses.
Just sayin.
Caz
If you actually supported Israel, you’d know how idiotic your statement about alienating supporters is. Those of us who truly support Israel aren’t going to be alienated on a whim like you opine. You’ll be easily alienated, perhaps, because you’re not much of an Israel supporter in the first place.
You’re really kind of an ignorant know-it-all, aren’t you? How’s that workin’ out for you?
And please, you can all stop with the childish troll comments. It just compounds the idiocy here, and it’s not like there’s a shortage of it or anything in this idiot echo chamber.
Lysana
@Tom Levenson: So did Solomon, come to that.
eemom
@Tom Levenson:
It’s just that I really liked it that one time you chimed in to explain to the Nazi analogists how horribly wrong and offensive that tactic is.
You don’t know how much shit I’ve taken for trying to explain that in the past. Similar with the mocking of the existence of anti-Semitism that goes on here all the time. (i.e., “I’m going to criticize Israel now, so I GUESS THAT MAKES ME AN ANTI-SEMITE, HAW HAW.”)
Not, as I have repeatedly stated, that the anti-Semite label isn’t exploited by neocon assholes — it is. But the above attitude, imo, amounts to a dismissal of the reality that anti-Semitism exists at all….and a refusal to acknowledge the fact that some — SOME — hatred of Israel is indeed motivated by that; and that anti-Semitism can be subtle as well as obvious.
@Djur:
I’ll take your word for that, but it’s not been consistent with my own experience.
debbie
@ eemom:
If you’re referring to my comment, it wasn’t intended to be a specific comparison to Nazis so much as it was to that way of thinking and manipulation. I hope you can tell the difference.
THE
@Samara Morgan:
Sad, but a worse problem for the Egyptian economy than for the Israeli gas supply, given the scale of gas discoveries offshore from Israel and also onshore in unconventional shale gas.
Quite simply: Israel is soon about to become a gas exporter.
Maybe Egypt would like to buy some?
And given that Israel is an industrial, sunbelt country, and stands to be an early beneficiary of the solar price-revolution, at least as far as daylight peak generation is concerned, I am not really concerned about Israeli energy supplies in any shape or form. At worst it’s a temporary dislocation.
THE
@Samara Morgan:
Matrilineal descent is not the only way to become Jewish, Samara. Anyone can become Jewish, even you.
eemom
@debbie:
I wasn’t. Anyway, since you referenced yourself as “self-hating,” you get a pass. :)
Joey Giraud
Given that the Holocaust is the single event most widely associated with the Jewish people, and that the modern state of Israel was founded right after WWII, and that most gentile Americans who feel sympathy for Israel will cite the Holocaust if asked why they feel that way…
It’s almost impossible to imagine any American discourse about Israel that avoids Nazis.
Samara Morgan
@Mark F: yup. but what i said is still true.
@Joey Giraud: you need to expand your circle of acquaintance–most young people, brown people and black people and asian people dont give a shit about Israel or the Holocaust.
@Mnemosyne: stop spewing bulshytt. i never said black people are dumber than white people.
link or GTFO.
@Tom Levenson: bride capture.
not what i was talking about.
I FUCKING SAID Israeli Jewish women CANT MARRY OUTSIDE THEIR FAITH INTHE COUNTRY OF ISRAEL.
liberal
@salacious crumb:
This is my impression also.
Not sure how much of it is demographic stuff like immigration from Eastern block countries, etc.
Samara Morgan
alas moderation.
@Tom Levenson: bride capture.
not at all what i was talking about.
I FUCKING SAID Israeli ” Jewish women ” CANT LEGALLY MARRY OUTSIDE THEIR FAITH IN THE STATE OF ISRAEL.
and that is a true statement.
Soonergrunt
@Samara Morgan: “alas moderation.”
Cleared.
Benjamin Franklin
I’m curious about your comment to me. Don’t be cryptic…
eemom
@Samara Morgan:
it’s a stupid fucking statement, given what was repeatedly explained to you above, i.e., that there’s no secular marriage of ANY KIND in Israel regardless of gender.
It’s exactly like saying “Jewish women can’t legally marry women outside their faith in most U.S. states.” Technically “true” but an utterly moronic thing to say.
mclaren
Satan would give you a phone call, but his tongue is stuck to the flagpole.
wilfred
“Let me go further: not only is this latest absurdity proof that there is a vast gulf between a commitment to Israel and a defense of its current government—the two are actually in conflict.”
How noble. What material difference has this distinction made in your committment to Israel? What could it? Where’s the line? This type of Lady Macbeth post/comments are routinely, and wittily, skewered by As’ad on his blog:
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/
Well, I’m totally committed to Palestine and the Palestinian people. Any chance we’ll ever have a blog post that starts with that?
Samara Morgan
@eemom: its not.
Rabbis wont marry a jewess to a man of another faith IN ISRAEL.
given that there is no civil marriage IN ISRAEL, that means a a female jewish citizen HAS TO GO OUT OF ISRAEL to marry a muslim or a christian (for example).
you are about as bright as a sack full of hammers.
i do not know if gay marriage is legal in Israel. My friend didnt say.
Samara Morgan
@wilfred: seconded.
/salutes wilfred with respect
eemom
@Samara Morgan:
Rabbis wont marry a jew-er to a woman of another faith IN ISRAEL.
given that there is no civil marriage IN ISRAEL, that means a male jewish citizen HAS TO GO OUT OF ISRAEL to marry a muslim or a christian (for example).
you are about as bright as a sack empty of hammers with a hole in the bottom.
you do not know if gay marriage is legal in Israel. Your friend didnt say cuz s/he didn’t want to risk blowing what few functioning neurons might still remain extant in your itty bitty brain.
Omnes Omnibus
@eemom: Fun observation: Israeli marriage law is a legal holdover from the days when the region was part of the Ottoman Empire. It is not a new, fancy Israeli thing to fuck up the non-Jews.
@Samara Morgan: Your friend didn’t say? Good lord, can’t you look things up before you spout off about them?
Samara Morgan
@Omnes Omnibus: it goes back waay further than that. no outmarriage for females is part of tribal practice from the EEA. muslimahs cant outmarry either unless the man converts to islam.
the difference is that its MUCH, MUCH harder to become a jew.
they dont take just any one.
@eemom:
no, they will allow outmarriage to females. its called the law of rachel or something like that….or bride capture in evo theory of culture.
you are just as stupid about this as you were about the Wikileaks Afghan data dump.
and just as wrong.
you are a know-nothing.
Samara Morgan
@Omnes Omnibus:
i said i didnt know. i wasnt spouting off about gay marriage in israel.
im telling the juicitariat what IS true. jewesses cant outmarry in Israel.
and im still astonished in the context of the video topic of this post that neither goldberg or levenson seem to know that.
eemom
@Samara Morgan:
Link or GTFO.
THE
@Samara Morgan:
Conversion is demanding. It takes about a year of study. But I don’t know that it would be blocked to any person who exhibited a sincere desire to convert and was willing to make all the changes in their life. The biggest problem is that Judaism itself is quite demanding ritually, particularly the conservative forms, and has unique cultural attributes. Of course for males it requires circumcision for most forms of Judaism.
Remember though that conversion to Catholicism also requires about a year of study and a willingness to commit yourself to a lifetime of obedience to canon law. wrt sacraments and masses, etc. It requires actually living the life.
I’ve known a couple of Jewish converts.
Paul in KY
@Everyone in the Pool: No problem. I got too touchy, I guess.
Paul in KY
@batgirl: Thank you for the information.