Sephardic Heritage Update 984
David Shasha
Friends,
We begin this week with another of my articles on the SY Haredi Rabbi Eli Mansour. This time we examine his Christian tendencies, as he has chosen to promote the idea that Torah scholars can be celibate. It is an excellent example of how Christianity has taken over even the most fundamentalist of the Jewish factions.
And that leads us straight to Rabbi Meir Soloveichik, another Jews for Jesus wannabe, who also finds common ground with the Trumpworld religious fanatics. In yet another of his depressing discussions of religion in America we see how committed he is to the political agenda of the Insurrectionists.
And the hits keep on coming with Jewish Episcopalian David Brooks doling out his annual Sidney Awards. This year he is not focused on the Lysol Insurrectionist Brigade, but on Cancel Culture and Free Speech. This allows him to heap praise on Whore of Trump Newhouse, while at the same time namechecking Noam Chomsky. Indeed, you can find everything in the Ashkenazi Jewish world! Brooks, like his colleague Ross Douthat, and his former colleague Bari Weiss – who seems to be making converts for Tikvah, is a Never Trumper who is really not much of a Never Trumper, as he remains implacably tied to the reactionary Neo-Con principles that remain key to both Tikvah and the Alt-Right.
Sticking to the Tikvah line, we present a new favorite of the organization, Moshe Koppel. Where we previously had Chaim Saiman presenting the Tikvah Halakhic line, we now seem to have an even more fundamentalist figure in Moshe Koppel. His “Heidi in Princeton” article was published by Newhouse and represents one of the clearest articulations of the Neo-Con Jewish vision in a religious key. Rabbi Elli Fischer, one of the founders of The Lehrhaus, reviews his book and shows us its centrality in the world of YU Modern Orthodoxy.
New York Times reporter David Halbfinger has written an excellent article on the Israeli Mizrahim that is an analogue to Thomas Frank’s What’s the Matter with Kansas? book. Sadly, the article never reflects on why the Mizrahim have become the way they are, given their debased assimilation into the White Jewish Supremacy, as they reject not only their own socio-economic interests, but their religious-intellectual heritage. The article relies primarily on the work of sociologist Nissim Mizrachi, which avoids the matter of culture and intellectualism, and focuses instead on Social Science blather. Jonathan Tobin makes use of the Halbfinger article and gloats, as any good White Jewish Supremacist world.
Michael Sussman, the owner of an Israeli corporate security firm, shows us what that White Jewish Supremacy looks like in real time as he speaks of his UAE “multicultural” experience. It is curious that the Ashkenazim work very hard to suppress Sephardim and Sephardic culture, but then turn around and embrace the Trump-Kushner Arab Gulf HASBARAH. It is all very depressing and very hypocritical, but it is the Ashkenazi way.
As an example of how that hypocrisy has affected the Arab Jews, we have an article from Israel Hayom by self-hater Janet Dallal, who knows nothing of the Sephardic heritage, but who is helping to promote that heritage in the Sheldon Adelson world. It is all about Arab Jewish Refugees and “Bourekas and Haminados” and HASBARAH angling.
Contrast the Dallal article with an excellent piece from our friend Marie Daouda, who, of course, is not Jewish, but a Moroccan of Gentile background. She too applauds the recent Zionist HASBARAH diplomacy, but her discussion is informed by a real understanding of the Sephardic heritage in its historical context. No Jew could have written such an article at this time.
Peter Wehner is a dedicated Christian Never Trumper, and here he discusses the TV series “The Chosen” in a way that tries desperately to bring out the Liberal elements of the Christian story. I am not sure that with all his Neo-Con baggage that it fully succeeds, but it is indeed a valiant attempt to create some distance between the Alt-Right and the Church. It is in many ways the opposite of what we continue to see from Tikvahworld, which inches ever closer to the Insurrectionist hordes.
We close with a review of a new book on the great Louis Armstrong by Ed Prideaux that discusses how many people saw the trumpeter as an Uncle Tom. In the spirit of Coatesian Black Separatism, the idea that Armstrong would try to integrate into the White racist world while still maintaining his dignity was seen as an impossibility. It does remain a difficult matter, as the many images of Satchmo flashing his trademark smile at predominantly White audiences can sometimes still be off-putting. But Prideaux presents the matter with sensitivity and intelligence, allowing us to see the complex racial identity of one of the most important American musicians of the last century.
David Shasha
Rabbi Eli Mansour Moves Ever Closer to Christianity: Ben Azzai and Sexual Abstinence
By: David Shasha
Can a Torah Scholar Be Exempt From the Misva of Procreation?
By: Rabbi Eli Mansour
The Common Cause of Religious Americans
By: Meir Y. Soloveichik
The Sidney Awards
By: David Brooks
Heidi of Princeton
By: Moshe Koppel
Review Essay: The Torah of the Kishkes
By: Elli Fischer
To Understand Red-State America, He Urges a Look at Red-State Israel
By: David M. Halbfinger
Red-state Mizrahi Israelis Don’t Want Liberal Sympathy or Solutions
By: Jonathan S. Tobin
My Multicultural Shabbat in A Muslim-Arab Country
By: Michael Sussman
The Culture of the Sephardi Jews is Grossly Undervalued
By: Janet Dallal
The Moroccan Deal with Israel Fills Me with Joy
By: Marie K. Daouda
The Forgotten Radicalism of Jesus Christ
By: Peter Wehner
Book Review: Not a Wonderful World: Why Louis Armstrong Was Hated by So Many
By: Ed Prideaux