I've watched the Whoopi Goldberg clip a few times and I can't believe she meant anything nefarious or bad by it. I can't stand her politics, and she hasn't been kind to opposing views (to say the least), but all she was spouting is the usual liberal line about the Holocaust -- i.e. that the lesson is about the universal tendency of human beings to commit evil, and the need for vigilance. (I was more offended by Ana Navarro's attempt to drag Nazis into the U.S. political scene as versions of her "white supremacist" political opponents.)
The ADL weighed in to criticize her. The ADL has become a racist organization, distinguishing between "Jews of color" and other Jews, which is a distinction that has no basis in Judaism. The fact is that the Holocaust was about race, and saw Jews as a race, but it also targeted Jews specifically, and the fact is that all of this is confusing even to smart people, which is why we should have a little more tolerance for people getting a few things wrong before a commercial break, even if they are wrong in a fundamental but well-intentioned way.
This week's show will be slightly different from the norm: we'll focus on clips and topics, rather than guests -- and that, hopefully, will mean more input from the callers (unless you are all watching football on opening weekend).
Topics:
- The state of the economy
- The fight against crime
- The midterm election fight
- The struggle for peace between Russia and Ukraine
- The airstrike on the Venezuelan drug cartel
- The attempt to sink Kennedy
- The war in Gaza
- The case against Harvard
- The Trump presidency
Tune in: SiriusXM Patriot 125, 7-10 p.m. ET / 4-7 p.m. PT
Call: 866-957-2874
This week's Torah portion includes several laws about conduct in civic and personal life, the common theme of which is boundaries -- setting bounds to what one may do at home, at work, and even in the battlefield.
One noteworthy passage concerns Amalek, the evil nation that attacked the Children of Israel as they made their Exodus from slavery to freedom. Deuteronomy 25:17-19 commands Jews to obliterate Amalek's memory.
The South African government accused Israel of genocide on the basis of a story about Amalek in the Book of Samuel, in which King Saul was commanded to wipe out the entire evil Amalekite nation.
Because Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu quoted this week's portion -- "Remember what Amalek did to you" (25:17), the South African government claimed he was commanding soldiers to commit genocide.
It was an absurd and malevolent misreading of the Bible and of Jewish tradition. The commandment, as observed by Jews today, is to remember the evil of Amalek and fight ...
