I hate to drop-in on a dispute between two Jews, but promise
not to touch what was said by either side regarding the substance of their
give-and-take. All I'm trying to do here is explore the logic of someone
getting so upset about something; she destroys her own carefully constructed
argument trying to have it both ways.
She is Nachama Soloveichik who wrote “Stop the Jew-Shaming,”
an article that was published on February 6, 2017 in National Review Online.
She tells how upset she is at Peter Beinart who wrote an article she views as
being the worst of the worst, even in the annals of Leftist Jewish writings.
She claims that Beinart's argument “reeks of intellectual laziness and rank
arrogance”.
Before getting to what Beinart had said that upset her so
deeply, she began her argument with this generalization: “Liberal Jews are
falling over one another to label President Trump the latest incarnation of
Jew-haters from Pharaoh to Haman to Hitler.” What Soloveichik did not realize
this early on, was that she just set herself up for a big fall later in the
article.
Because she does not want Peter Beinart or any of those like
him “to decide who is a good Jew and who is not,” she wants him and them to
stop shaming those who – like her – are “conservative, Jewish, female or
black.” Beinart and company, she says, concocted and directed attacks ranging
from “the exaggerated to the absurd” at those who are of her political stripe …
doing so as often as “mazal tov” and “shabbat shalom” are uttered.
What really got her upset – like the straw that broke the
camel's back – was Beinart's attack on Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of Donald
Trump, President of the United
States . There was a build-up to this point,
she says, in that “over the past couple of months, a parade of liberals” have
been telling her and other Jews (1) how they should vote; (2) what the Jewish
values entail them to do and not do; (3) what should be the proverbial
“Eleventh Commandment” for Jews; and (4) what the Jews should believe and how
they should practice their faith.
Then came the moment when the camel's back buckled under.
That's how it happened, she says: “This audacity came to a head after the
president's executive order. Suddenly, every Jewish group and activist
appointed itself the moral authority on Jewish values. Worse, some used Judaism
to shame the Jews with whom they disagree.” It was the moment when – in her
view – Peter Beinart pointed an accusatory finger at Jared Kushner.
How dare he do that? She angrily interjected. Yes, he has
the right to “throw his hat in the ring. But Beinart goes straight for the
jugular,” she cried out. And so she punched back at him aiming to bloody his
nose: “Last I checked, Beinart is neither God nor prophet. He's no Moses or
Joshua. He and his cohorts don't get to decide who is a good Jew and who is
not.” That's as forcefully as a lady can go without being vulgar.
Proud of herself for this stellar performance, she feels
like superwoman or close to that. But what to do now for an encore? Oh yes;
there is something that can be done. She can – indeed she must – turn the table
on Beinart to show him who is the morally superior of the two. He tried to tell
her and her cohorts how they should practice Judaism. She crushed him, and now
she'll tell him and tell his cohorts how they should practice Judaism. It's a
classic case of role reversal.
She begins with this preamble: “When leftists exploit
Judaism as a political weapon, they discredit their own position as well as the
religion they claim to uphold.” Then guess what she does, my friend. She does
the very thing she just said is discrediting. Here it is: “There's a word in
Biblical Hebrew that means disgrace: bizayon … I cannot think of a greater
disgrace than to manipulate Judaism to attack other people's Jewish faith.”
This is only the preamble, and she lit the fuse already.
She now lets the spark move closer and closer to the
explosive charge, nudging it along with these words: “Beinart should learn from
Moses, who asked God, “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should
take the Children of Israel out of Egypt ?”