Rabbi Lerner has Never Met an Anti-Semite He Didn't Like - Cindy Sheehan Edition
In recent weeks, Chris Hitchens has been almost giggly with delight about the perfect harmony of having Eve Ensler, author of the Vagina Monologues, arrange for Cindy Sheehan to go on tour with George Galloway: all of the Left's self-caricaturing ideal types - moonbat anti-war activists, odious terrorist sympathizers, and lunatic identity activists - all coming together in some sort of cosmic convergence. For us, having Rabbi Lerner invite Cindy Sheehan to talk in shul is a lot like that:
[Lerner] admits that the folks he befriends are anti-Semitic but, except for that, they are great especially anti-Semitic airhead Cindy whom he invited to his services: "I was so moved by that part of the event that I asked Sheehan’s schedulers to arrange for Cindy to talk at my own Rosh Hashanah services I’ll be conducting at the University of San Francisco on October 4th. These are the days of repentance (from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur) and certainly one appropriate target for repentance is the ways that we the American public have been complicit in this war."
Rabbi Lerner is used to begging anti-Semites to accept him:
Rabbi Michael Lerner has been banned from speaking at the antiwar rally in San Francisco this Sunday, February 15. One of the rally organizers, Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (ANSWER), has stated that it will not allow a "pro-Israel" speaker to take the stage - despite the fact that Rabbi Lerner has been an outspoken critic of Israeli policy in the occupied territories, has endorsed ANSWER's antiwar rallies in the past, has signed the Not in Our Name petition against the war, and is widely known to be among the most progressive of American rabbis.
Calling Rabbi Lerner pro-Israel is like calling Tom Cruise a social worker – on the outside, he might look like someone matching that description, but that's only until you listen to him talk. There's no way a sentient being could possibly think that he's "pro-Israel", and ANSWER didn't really think so - by "pro-Israel" they meant "Jewish." But like some kind of pathetic puppy, Lerner is back, trying to make friends with ANSWER's new exhbitionist pin-up girl.
[Cross-posted at IsraPundit]
[Lerner] admits that the folks he befriends are anti-Semitic but, except for that, they are great especially anti-Semitic airhead Cindy whom he invited to his services: "I was so moved by that part of the event that I asked Sheehan’s schedulers to arrange for Cindy to talk at my own Rosh Hashanah services I’ll be conducting at the University of San Francisco on October 4th. These are the days of repentance (from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur) and certainly one appropriate target for repentance is the ways that we the American public have been complicit in this war."
Rabbi Lerner is used to begging anti-Semites to accept him:
Rabbi Michael Lerner has been banned from speaking at the antiwar rally in San Francisco this Sunday, February 15. One of the rally organizers, Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (ANSWER), has stated that it will not allow a "pro-Israel" speaker to take the stage - despite the fact that Rabbi Lerner has been an outspoken critic of Israeli policy in the occupied territories, has endorsed ANSWER's antiwar rallies in the past, has signed the Not in Our Name petition against the war, and is widely known to be among the most progressive of American rabbis.
Calling Rabbi Lerner pro-Israel is like calling Tom Cruise a social worker – on the outside, he might look like someone matching that description, but that's only until you listen to him talk. There's no way a sentient being could possibly think that he's "pro-Israel", and ANSWER didn't really think so - by "pro-Israel" they meant "Jewish." But like some kind of pathetic puppy, Lerner is back, trying to make friends with ANSWER's new exhbitionist pin-up girl.
[Cross-posted at IsraPundit]
