When Jennie indicated that she was Jewish, the woman literally huffed: “Now I understand.” She later pursued Jennie into the hall and told her she was hell-bound, had a demonic presence in her and that only Christians were really Jewish.

July 7, 2008 Christian Right and Antisemitism No Comments

Barry Lynn, Americans United, Church & State, May 2000 Perspective

The previous Friday I attended Pat Robertson’s 70th birthday gala at the Hilton here in Washington. (Don’t worry; I didn’t use Americans United money for the $50 per plate dinner tickets. In fact, like most of the attendees, I got mine free.) This was an event filled with praise for Robertson from a raft of family members and colleagues, most of them fully engaged in all of his escapades to gain power and profit while preaching his version of the Gospel. (I noted that four of the eight United States senators who wrote special tribute letters for the fancy dinner brochure were the same people who asked the Justice Department to investigate Americans United last summer.)

Far from embracing differences, as the Feminist Expo crowd, some of these folks were as belligerent as you get outside of a prizefight. I took my new assistant Jennie Oberzan to the event because she had never heard Robertson speak. Prior to the dinner, she had a chance to meet some of my opponents in the “cultural war” including Col. Oliver North, Jay Sekulow and Jerry Falwell. They were predictably polite.

Our “dinner companions” were something else again. I neither hide nor brag about what I do at such events, and if people recognize me, we usually agree to disagree and talk about the weather, raising teenage children or baseball. The woman to our left was clearly suspicious of my presence and asked who I was. When I told her, she asked me how I could possibly support public schools since they now had “queers” in them.

I told her that I resented that language, which only encouraged her to repeat it. I told her that I wasn’t having any conversation if she was going to use such pejoratives. She persisted. I even told her that if my son used that word I would ground him for a month.

She then moved on to interrogating Jennie. When Jennie indicated that she was Jewish, the woman literally huffed: “Now I understand.” She later pursued Jennie into the hall and told her she was hell-bound, had a demonic presence in her and that only Christians were really Jewish. We left early.

Eldar: No one proposed razing Baruch Goldstein’s home

July 7, 2008 Jerusalem, Israel's Separation Wall, Checkpoints as Breeding Grounds of Terror, Israeli-Palestinian conflict No Comments

Akiva Eldar, A binational reality - Haaretz, July 7, 2008

How nice that this time, too, the terrorist was a “lone wolf,” a drug addict or just a nut case. Just so long as Jerusalemite murderers are not acting on behalf of terrorist groups. “Wild weeds” can grow in any garden. We also once had a strange doctor who carried out a massacre in a mosque; his family erected a glorious tombstone in honor of the “saint.” No one proposed razing the family’s home for the purpose of “deterrence” - and justifiably so. If we assume that this was the case of a deviant, demolishing the home of his family will deter the next deviant in the same way that the death penalty deters people who decide to blow themselves up in a bus, in the hope of having fun with 70 virgins in paradise. Deterrence is relevant when it is applied to trends in the mainstream, not in the sidelines of society.

The murderer at the Mercaz Harav yeshiva and the terrorist with the bulldozer did not represent an organization. Worse still: They reflect the mood of thousands of residents in Israel’s capital. A terror organization can be tracked down, declared illegal and its leadership can be arrested. Discontent that originates at the grassroots needs no guidance, is not controlled by anyone’s decisions, and it is much more difficult to contain.