Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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After too much time reading the news, I recently felt the need for a pick-me-up. But little did I dream that it would come in the form of an extensively researched 10,000-word article in the very left-wing outlet The Intercept. After Democrats won the trifecta — the presidency, House, and Senate — reports Ryan Grim, the advocacy organizations that form the party’s ideological infrastructure ceased to function. That’s the good news. The reason for that paralysis is enough to make one fall on the floor laughing: No one can work with the young ...
For us old-timers, it is beginning to feel like the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis all over again, in terms of worries about a nuclear conflagration. Vladimir Putin is waving around his tactical nuclear weapons, i.e., low yield nuclear bombs that would have a devastating impact on a battlefield, but limit the damage to a specific area. Few would suggest based on what we have seen from him since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine that his moral scruples would prevent him from employing them should his armies face a humiliating defeat or...
The mainstream media and pollsters have once again soiled themselves. Let’s begin with the best news of election week. Republicans appear likely to retain control of the Senate. That means no court-packing (though the idea has now been given legitimacy in some Democratic circles), no Equality Act, expanding the Supreme Court’s decision in Bostock. And no economically ruinous Green New Deal. A Democratic president might well have one or more Supreme Court appointments in the next four years, but to secure confirmation, he or she will have to...
If we ask the right questions, we might get a lot closer to the answer much sooner. I am almost never offended by criticism of anything I write. For one thing, I’m acutely aware that there is usually more than one side of an issue. Second, I’m an ardent proponent of the clarifying power of debate. But I confess to being more than a little irritated by a private email sent to me in response to my first column on the coronavirus. The correspondent began by accusing me of having mentioned the economic impact of a prolonged shutdown because I’m in...
Jewish Media Resources www.jewishmediaresources.org In the political realm, power is roughly divided between Democrats and Republicans in the United States. But the cultural realm—mainstream media, the entertainment industry, and higher education—tilts dramatically left. And the latter is likely to be far more determinative of the environment in which Orthodox parents raise their children, as Stephen Prothero documents in Why Liberals Win the Culture Wars (Even When They Lose Elections). That pattern applies even as the left grows ever mor...
(Jewish Media Resources)—My brother recently sent me a three-hour video of the Weinstein brothers, Eric and Bret, in conversation. Eric, the older brother, holds a PhD in mathematical physics from Harvard, and has published widely in both physics and economics. He is today the managing director of Thiel Capital, the investment arm of PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel. Bret taught biology at Evergreen State College until he ran afoul of the social justice warriors. He tried to teach his course on a “day of absence” declared by black students: whites...
In his keynote survey of the descent of American democracy in the Trump era, at the recent Zionism 3.0 conference in Palo Alto, Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg dwelled for some time on the proliferation of “fake news,” which he attributed, in large part, to the thousands of portals of entry of information—be it true or false—into the public consciousness. Not surprisingly, he gave much higher marks for accuracy and objectivity to the old media, which while not perfect, does a pretty good job of bringing pertinent and accurate informa...
What explains Europe’s self-destructive denial? Europe is committing cultural suicide. More than a decade ago, historian Bernard Lewis warned that by the dawn of the next century, Europe would resemble nothing so much as an extension of the Maghreb. He was being too conservative by decades. By placing out the welcome mat to millions of new Muslim immigrants annually, Europe is accepting into its midst products of foreign cultures who have proven largely unassimilable, and who will only become more so as their communities grow larger. Most of t...
Is there a double standard when it comes to derogatory terms for race? Read no further than the writings of June Chu, dean of students of Pierson College, one of the twelve residential colleges for Yale undergraduates. Chu has written in the “Inside Higher Education” of the need for “cultural sensitivity” and the avoidance of “micro-aggressions” in discussions with minority students. And she describes her job, as a Pierson dean, as supporting students in their “holistic and multifaceted identities.” But apparently that sensitivity onl...
There is no reason to suspect that President Trump harbors anything but the warmest feelings for Israel. And many of his closest advisers—his son-in-law Jared Kushner, Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt, and Ambassador to Israel David Friedman—have long records of support for Israel. Yet it is possible to do harm without intending to do so, and Trump’s meeting with Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas suggests that he may fall into that category. A less egotistical man might have been given pause by the abject failure of so many of hi...
Recently, I had a chance to spend a day with one of my closest friends from law school. Near the end of our time together, he shared the story of the passing of his mother whom I had the pleasure of meeting many decades ago. Towards the end the end of her life, she was hospitalized with pneumonia. The doctor told her oldest son that she would not be able regain her strength unless a feeding tube was inserted. Her son decided against the feeding tube on the grounds that his mother had lived a full life—she was then 96—and that the operation ent...
Political theorist Mark Lilla has noted the irony that “Once upon a time, the Jews were mocked for not having a nation-state. Now they are criticized for having one,” and their stubborn determination to defend it. That is why the dramatic reassertion of national sovereignty in the Brexit vote is important for Israel. Nor was the British public alone. Laurent Wauquiez, former French minister for European affairs, said in the wake of the Brexit vote, “[T]he result would have been the same in any other country in the EU. Perhaps an even great...
