« Mercaz Memorial in Los Angeles | Main | The Los Angeles Mercaz HaRav Rally: A Report »
March 09, 2008
Best of the Jewish Blogosphere # 157
“This war differs from other wars in this particular:
We are not fighting armies, but a hostile people, and must make
old and young, rich and poor, feel the hard hand of war.”
— General William Tecumseh Sherman
We'd like to thank My Shrapnel for including Seraphic Secret's profile of Jewish silent film star Theda Bara in this fine collection. Actually, we submitted War is the Remedy, and after the slaughter of the students at Mercaz Harav, our essay is more timely than ever—but, whatever.
We'd like to draw everyone's attention to Rabbi Daniel Gordis's superb essay: The Shame of it All. In which he argues that the morally bankrupt leaders of Israel, and the leftist, chattering classes cannot articulate the reasons for Jewish statehood beyond: “It's a fun place to live.”
Here's how he begins this important profile of the decline of the Jewish State:
There were days, and they were not that long ago, when Zionism was about something different. Days when Zionists could articulate what the purpose of Jewish Statehood was, days when Israelis understood that having a state was about changing the existential condition of the Jew. Not anymore.
Click here to read the entire article.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at March 9, 2008 12:17 PM
Comments
Seraphic Secret is private property, that's right, it's an extension of our home, and as such, Karen and I have instituted two Seraphic Rules and we ask commentors to act respectfully.
1. No profanity.2. No Israel bashing. We debate, we discuss, we are respectful. You know what Israel bashing is. The world is full of it. Seraphic Secret is one of the few places in the world that will not tolerate this form of anti-Semitism. That's it. Break either of these rules and you will be banned.
Actually, we submitted War is the Remedy,
See the comments there for why Gila made that switch. Some nerve.
Posted by: kishke at March 9, 2008 01:37 PM
" ... See the comments there for why Gila made that switch. Some nerve. ... "
it might have been that she was involved in the comments section,
so in her own modest way,
she sort-of disqualified herself, and chose a different selection
anyway,
she put together a really nice collection of blogposts
Posted by: exdemexlib at March 9, 2008 05:29 PM
A couple of comments about the roundup and Gordis essay.
This is one of my favorite essays by Gordis. He provided an excellent commentary about the current siuation. I consider it a must read.
As for Haveil Havalim, I can tell you a number of things. As many of you know I took over admin duties from Soccer Dad.
I have provided some relatively loose guidelines for the hosts. No antisemitic rants and no unfair criticism of Israel.
That provides a fair amount of latitude. But I think that it is important.
The roundup helps to build a sense of community among us. It provides smaller bloggers with the opportunity to try and gain new readers.
It provides many educational opportunities for those within the community and those without.
We should never reach a place where we cannot criticize Israel, Judaism or each other. But that criticism needs to be based upon fact and intellectual honesty.
IMO the best Haveil Havalims are those in which the host spends real time reading and including important posts. It takes a little time, a little sechel, but it turns into something special.
It is not a cliche, we stand together or we die alone. What happens to Jews around the world impacts all of us. If we let murder in Israel or France, or Britain go unremarked upon we diminish ourselves and impower our enemies.
My apologies for the long rant, the loss of an hour of sleep seems to have hit me harder than I would have expected.
Posted by: Jack at March 9, 2008 07:10 PM
it might have been that she was involved in the comments section, so in her own modest way,
she sort-of disqualified herself, and chose a different selection
Perhaps you're right. I should have been "dan l'kaf zechus."
Posted by: kishke at March 9, 2008 08:01 PM