30 Mar
Uncategorized

Loving Israel The Right (Or Left) Way

By Amanda Walgrove Last week, Sarah Palin visited Israel and met with Prime Minister Netanyahu and other members of Israel's right-wing coalition, including Likud Chairman, Danny Danon. Many have questioned whether or not this was an early campaign move; many GOP members who may throw their hats into the Presidential ring—Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, and Haley Barbour—have recently made visits to Israel as well. “It’s not the Ames straw poll, but I do think a visit to Israel is an important stop for folks who are running for president,” Republican Jewish Coalition executive director Matthew Brooks told Politico. “So much of what our commander-in-chief will deal with in the White House is rooted in this part of the world.” Besides being a shiny credential on the checklist for candidacy, Palin’s visit also serves to put another...

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16 Jan
Uncategorized

Sarah Palin's Jewish Problem

By Symi Rom-Rymer By now, anyone with access to the internet will know about the latest furor in the wake of the tragic shooting in Tuscon: Sarah Palin’s use of ‘blood libel’ in her first official statement since the shooting.  In a rare demonstration of unity, her choice of words, with their inescapable echoes of past violence by Christians against Jews, drew immediate condemnation.   Jewish organizations across the political spectrum came out with critical statements from Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, who agreed with her position but regretted her choice of words to Jeremy Ben-Ami, President of the liberal Israel lobbying group JStreet, who simply denounced her statement. As concerning as it is that ‘blood libel’ can be now ripped from its historical moorings and used by anyone in any context, even more concerning...

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05 Oct
Uncategorized

Web Exlclusive – The Kosher Tea Party

It's well-known that American Jews tend to lean left politically.  Over 70 percent, for example, voted for Barack Obama.  But what about the rest of the Jews?  "Are we chopped liver?" asks Benyamin Korn, a fiscally conservative Orthodox Jew? There are, in fact, a handful of Jewish activists that strongly support the Tea Party movement.  Moment's Web Exclusive on the Jewish Tea Party includes profiles of some of its activists and a fascinating account of how they got involved. What do you think about the Tea Party?  Is it "good for the Jews?"  Leave your comments and let us know!

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24 Oct
Latest

Finding the "Real (Jewish) Americans"

More than 200 professors of Jewish studies have joined to form the latest Jews-for-Obama group, reports The Jewish Daily Forward. But the Republican Jewish Coalition poo-poos the new alliance's potential impact. Jews won't listen to eggheads, reasons RJC executive director Matt Brooks. "hese elites in many regards just speak for themselves," he explained to The Forward. Brooks hits the nail on the head (if you'll permit a workingman's metaphor those ivory tower types probably wouldn't understand): Anyone knows that, say, Jewish seniors in Florida wouldn't hold much truck with woolly-headed, four-eyed academics. Jews' disdain for the university sort is legend. No, as Brooks implies, undecided Jewish voters are much more likely to take political guidance from "real" Americans like Moshe the Plumber and all his buddies at the Nuremberg Sarah Palin rallies. You've probably seen them on...

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13 Oct
Culture, Latest

Get Wigged Out Like Palin

A mere day after John McCain named his vice-presidential choice, I hatched a clever plan to dress as Sarah Palin for Halloween. Soon after, though, the whole country stole my idea − I even know of one sister-brother pair, still in middle school, planning to trick-or-treat as Palin and a moose. (Speaking of moose, remember this great Woody Allen stand-up bit?) So, okay, I need some other scary get-up for Halloween and will consider all reasonable proposals offered here. For the record, I ruled out going as the McCain Supreme Court—didn't want to freak out the kiddies. In the meantime, even women who wouldn't dream of observing pagan rituals may be "doing themselves up" like Alaska's governor, albeit without guns or miniskirts: Sarah Palin wigs are now on offer to the Orthodox community, Haaretz reports, just...

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22 Sep
Latest

UN Roundup

What with non-stop hoopla at the convening of the United Nations General Assembly this week in New York, we offer a quick recap of the main issues to help you sift through the news coverage. Predictably, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has created the most amount of controversy. One example: The American Jewish Committee wrote an open letter to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon protesting a dinner at which Ahmadinejad will be honored. Republican Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin has also made headlines, primarily because of her planned appearance at a rally organized today to voice opposition to Ahmadinejad. This is the rally that Hillary Clinton pulled out of because she didn't want to make it a political circus. In turn, it has become a political circus. Update 3:05 PM: JTA puts the number of protesters in the thousands. Palin...

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15 Sep
Latest

Dreams about Sarah Palin (with Jewish content)

At some point before I cast my ballot this November, I am going to have a dream about Sarah Palin. It is just inevitable—she is everywhere right now. And though I may be a would-be Palin dreamer, I am not alone. As of Friday, Slate received almost 500 letters from readers whose partisan, bipartisan, juicy and just plain weird dreams about Palin were, as we would say in California, totally awesome: It's hard to generalize about such a large group of dreams, but there were a few persistent themes: Palin as a gun-toting animal killer, pregnancies and denied abortions, baby Trig, and the landscape of Alaska. Many of you reported dreaming about John McCain dying and Palin taking over the Oval Office. Both men and straight women reported sexual fantasies involving the Alaska governor... Palin appeared sticking...

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08 Sep
Latest

Palin asked Jesus for a gas pipeline and God for a plan in Iraq

What did you do this weekend? Me? I just sipped some superb Merlot from nearby what Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of that backward village called New York City, would describe as "cosmopolitan" San Francisco and watched some videos of Republican veep pick Sarah Palin. Speaking at the Wasilla Assembly of God, her former church, last year, Governor Palin asked Jesus for a $30 billion natural gas pipeline in Alaska and called the war in Iraq "a task from God." As she put it, "Our national leaders are sending them out on a task that is from God. That's what we have to make sure that we're praying for, that there is a plan and that plan is God's plan." Perhaps more surprising than Palin's statements were those made by Pastor Ed Kalnins when he joined her...

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04 Sep
Latest

Some of My Best Friends are…Lutheran?

When Sarah Palin ran for mayor in 1996, she apparently floated the possibility that her political opponent was an M.O.T. ("member of the tribe")—and the tribe in question wasn't Inuit. Kudos to the New York Times for conducting on-the-tundra reporting that might have behooved the McCain campaign during the full day or two it allowed for vetting the potential Next-in-Line. The resulting examination of Palin's meteoric rise in the GOP describes how McCain's "soul mate" roiled the previously non-partisan arena of Wasilla town politics by introducing wedge issues having little to do with sewers, schools or municipal bonds—issues like guns, abortion and religion. And she got personal about it, too, according to her opponent, three-time incumbent Jeff Stein. Stein told the Times: "I’m not a churchgoing guy, and that was another issue: ‘We will have our first...

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