I ran across this bit of insanity today.
| Quote: |
| Jewish Americans for Sarah Palin is an independent group of academic, religious and political leaders, dedicated to promoting consideration of Gov. Sarah Palin’s political positions in the wider American Jewish community.
We find Ms. Palin’s policy positions on Israel, Iran, national security, fiscal responsibility, energy, and social policy – as well as her record on these issues as governor of Alaska and candidate for Vice President of the United States – to be serious, substantive and politically mainstream. |
This is the same politician quoted here, right?
| Quote: |
| She denounced this week’s Wisconsin federal court ruling that government observance of a National Day of Prayer was unconstitutional — which the crowd joined in booing. She asserted that America needs to get back to its Christian roots and rejected any notion that “God should be separated from the state.
“Hearing any leader declare that America isn’t a Christian nation and poking at allies like Israel in the eye — it is mind-boggling to see some of our nation’s actions recently, but politics truly is a topic for another day,” Palin said. |
So who are these Jews for Palin? Are they the mythical controllers of the entertainment industry? (My invites to their meetings must get lost in the mail.) Or perhaps the descendants of the masterminds behind The Protocols of the Elders of Zion?
Unlike Christians, most Jews identify as Jewish even if they don’t practice or in my case have never been devout. Being Jewish is a cultural identity that never leaves you. Most Jews are born Jewish (no baptism here) and at least in America have similar cultural elements, regardless of where they were raised, interwoven into many aspects of their life from food to intellectualism to Yiddish.
I’ll often refer to my self as a secular humanist Jew. I’ve met people who identify as Jewish Buddhists (such a common combination that the phenomenon has a nickname–Jubu–and an extensive Wikipedia entry) and Hindu Jews. Even Jews for Jesus self-identify as Jews. They may practice Christianity but they’ll never cease being Jews.
The idea that a significant portion of Jewish America could support Palin is absurd (I hope). She targets the very thing that make us Jews. Palin supports a Christian culture with no tolerance for any thing but a very narrow world view. Any group that is not of that particular white protestant outlook should fear Palin and what she represents.
(BTW, contrary to perceptions, being pro-Israel does NOT automatically make you pro-Jewish.)