Sephardic Heritage Update 972
David Shasha
Friends,
I would like to dedicate this week’s newsletter to Donald Trump and his supporters, particularly the members of the Brooklyn Syrian Jewish community and the cowards among them who are too scared to speak out for Torah and tradition. I would particularly like to single out Rabbi Ricky Hidary who has in his writings attacked our Sephardic heritage for many years, but could not find any words against Trump. His support for Tikvah Tablet Alana Newhouse and her Trump Campaign Surrogate values will always be remembered. Indeed, God knows all, and will dispense His justice at the appropriate time.
We begin with my article on the Lysol-McConnell RBG replacement corruption. While they apparently have no time to help Americans suffering as COVID rages, they do in fact have time to kill off the RBG legacy with the Whore of Trump. Ross Douthat reminds us that Never Trump is not really an absolute value.
Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg reported on the Murderer-in-Chief calling our military “losers” and “suckers.” It is ironic that the Orange Pig is now the “loser.”
The Witherspoon Institute is a Right Wing religious think-tank that has largely supported Trump. I picked two of their recent articles that show what is going on the Christian mind regarding the New Fascism. It is a fascinating contrast in approach.
And let us not forget Traitor Mueller at this auspicious moment in Trump History. Charlie Savage and Jennifer Szalai discuss the revelations from Andrew Weissmann, a former Mueller team player, who is now saying that the Traitor was actually a Traitor and did not do his job properly. Let us hope that Cy Vance and Tish James do better.
Yehuda Kurtzer and Claire Sufrin present the state of the art in White Jewish Supremacy, as they discuss their new anthology of the Jewish Canon, which is another attempt to erase Sephardim from the discourse. Job well done!
And we finally get to another of Richard Hidary’s “New Talmud” Tikvah Tablet Trump-friendly articles, this one on the theme of “work” which is a particular favorite of the Alt-Right “Liberate” movement. Get those AK-47s cocked! The Talmud is with you.
Zionist “Liberal” Bernard Avishai reminds us that the Old Guard still does not like Orthodoxy. Given what has gone on in Israel during the Pandemic, it is hard to understand how the country still functions.
The Jewish Currents article by Daniel Kraft on the New Hasidic academic scholarship presents a truly fascinating attempt by a Progressive Ashkenazi Jew to try and figure out what Shaul Magid and that bunch is trying to do. It is all one big mess with no clear understanding of what it means; reminding us that the Judaic Studies mafia is living in a delusion.
Speaking of delusions, Maya Phillips treats the Poptrash Idiocracy group Panic! At the Disco as if they are real artists. It is another worrying sign of the ongoing cultural degradation that is being celebrated by media elites,
In contrast, I am happy to present the opposite cultural trend in a New York Times article on the Voices of East Harlem, who I had never heard of, but whose music is now playing on my CD player! Voices were a Black Gospel group in the late 1960s who sought to make a crossover Soul move, and were amazingly successful artistically, though the mainstream music industry did not really know what to do with them. I strongly recommend their CDs which bring us back to a time when Social Activism and religious values were one and the same. It represents a tremendous contrast with Trumpworld, and can point us to a more hopeful future.
David Shasha
The Trump-McConnell Confederate Death Train Runs into RBG
By: David Shasha
How the G.O.P. Might Get to Yes on Replacing Ruth Bader Ginsburg
By: Ross Douthat
Trump: Americans Who Dies in War are ‘Losers’ and ‘Suckers’
By: Jeffrey Goldberg
How Trump Has Transformed the GOP – and Why Conservatives Should Vote for Him Anyway
By: Hunter Baker
Christian Witness Demands that We Defend Truth – and Reject Donald Trump
By: O. Alan Noble
Mueller’s Team Should Have Done More to Investigate Trump-Russia Links, Top Aide Says
By: Charlie Savage
Book Review: A Prosecutor’s Backstage Tour of the Mueller Investigation
By: Jennifer Szalai
What Should Go in the New Jewish Canon
By: Yehuda Kurtzer and Claire Sufrin
Working It
By: Richard Hidary
Orthodoxy and Liberalism
By: Bernard Avishai
Review Essay: Shaping the Neo-Hasidic Canon
By: Daniel Kraft
Panic! At the Disco’s Flourishes Weren’t Just Dramatic. They Were Theater.
By: Maya Phillips
The Voices of East Harlem Tied Gospel Music to Protest
By: Robert M. Marovich