(((NYT’s Weisman))) on American/Israeli Jewish Schism – and – Other Shivas and Newsbits

Just days after being named by JTA to be among the top fifty people to follow on the Jewish Twittersphere, (((Jonathan Weisman))), the deputy Washington editor of The New York Times has written an analysis for the January 6, 2019 NYT Sunday Review titled, American Jews and Israeli Jews Are Headed for a Messy Breakup: Is the world ready for the Great Schism. Weisman opines that 2018 brought American and Israeli Jews closer to a breaking point, much of it driven by differing attitudes towards current U.S. President Donald J. Trump and current Israeli P.M. Binyamin Netanyahu; their election rhetoric that leverage vile racism; and a schism between an American Jewish religion focused on Tikkun Olam and what is seens as an Israeli Jewish religion that is focused on politically driven non-inclusive policies.

Weisman believes a Great Schism, Gap, and Canyon has arrived as many American Jews, especially young ones would say, “Israel is Israel’s problem, we have our own.”

And now back to…
that JTA list of the Top 50 Twitter profiles to follow…
the list I will never appear on.. sigh… It can be found HERE.

Someone else who did not appear on the list is the late comedian, Bob Einstein.

Einstein succumbed to cancer in Southern California this week at the age of 76. A beloved writer (Smothers Brothers, Sonny & Cher) and comedian Einstein was the son of comedian Harry Parke (ParkYaKarKus) , and a brother of comedian Albert (Einstein) Brooks, as well as a husband, father, and grandfather. Einstein is most remembered for his character Super Dave Osborne and playing the Orthodox Jewish, pro Israel character of Marty Funkerhouser on Curb Your Enthusiasm. Larry David said, “Never have I seen an actor enjoy a role the way Bob did playing ‘Marty Funkhouser’ on Curb. It was an amazing, unforgettable experience knowing and working with him. There was no one like him, as he told us again and again. We’re all in a state of shock.”

In this famous scene: Larry and Jeff have been secretly eating at Al Abbas Chicken, a new Palestinian-owned chicken joint (it’s the best chicken in town). They invite Marty Funkhouser, who has recently re-dedicated his life to the Jewish faith. In the parking lot, LD and Jeff suggest that Funkhouser takes off his yarmulke before entering the Palestinian restaurant. The Funkman refuses, so Larry tries to wrestle it from his hands.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=K8XNrAjh7eo

Goodbye Bob Einstein (aka Marty Funkhouser) and thank you for this joke. "I like that guy." pic.twitter.com/dmOJDx4CT4

— Matt Wilstein (@mattwilstein) January 2, 2019

Also of note were the passings of
author and peace activist AMOS OZ (as eulogized in the left-thinking The Nation);

author Edgar Hilsenrath, who wrote “The Nazi and the Barber” and survived a Transnistra ghetto;

Argentine political leader, Héctor Timerman passed away at 65. He was a past Foreign Minister of Argentina, and figured prominently in dealing with Iran and the B.A. Jewish community. His father Jacobo was famous for his books on the military junta in Argentina and his sojourn in Israel after it negotiated his release from prison;

Georges Loinger, French resistance fighter and athlete died at the age of 108. A brother of Marcel Marceau, Longer saved hundreeds of Jewish children during WWII;

Another fighter who passed away as 2019 began was Frank Blaichman who escaped a death camp and became a partisan leader, as well as a builder of Yad Vashem.

Are you a fan of FINDING YOUR ROOTS, on PBS? In Season 5 (see the preview HERE), we learn that George R. R. Martin , the creator of GAME OF THRONES (GOT), is of biological Jewish heritage (25% if you believe in pop ancestries of percentages). His grandmother most likely had a close Jewish friend who was not her husband. Also comedian/actor Andy Samberg, the upcoming co-host of the Golden Globe awards will learn that a maternal grandparent is European (German-Jewish) and another is also European, just like some of the producers of the Golden Globes. (Andy’s mother was adopted and never knew her birth mother, since the Wise agency would not give up the info).

Speaking of TV, for those who enjoy the Netflix comedy “Friends From College,” about half a dozen Harvard alums in NYC, season two will include the wedding of Fred Savage’s Max to his boyfriend, Billy Eichner’s Felix. Also BROAD CITY will end its run with Season 5. Jezebel writes, “…as great as Broad City was, both Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer seem like they’ve grown out of their scrappy stoner characters.”

Speaking of scrappy stoners, The New York Times interviews former Senate leader Harry Reid in Nevada Senator Reid is terminally ill and does not hold back in his ideas and attitudes. Reid, who with his wife becmae a Mormon as a young adult, sets out a menorah ih is hallway to comfort the NYT reporter.

Speaking of reporters and editors, the editors of The New York Times Book Review attempt to reply to many readers, Tablet Magazine, a Wharton professor, and the national director of the ADL who took issue with an interview the Book Review conducted with author Alice Walker. Walker lauded a book by a vile anti-Semite, showing her true nature and hate filled attitudes. The Book Review responded that they edit the responses by the authors only for Times style and factual accuracy, but The Times does not assess the quality of the books that the subjects choose to write about.

Speaking of horrific anti-Semites with excellent educations, The Cleveland Clinic might start to review that social postings of its potential news hires. This is in response to its termination of a supervised medical resident, a recent graduate of the Jewish-affiliated TOURO COLLEGE OF OSTEOPATHIC MEDICINE IN NY, who worked at the clinic for several months in 2017, after learning that she — Lara Kollab, O.D. — had posted virulent anti-Semitic posts online, including one in 2012 in which she wrote that she would purposely give Jews “the wrong meds.” Actually she wrote that she would try to kill the Yahoods, using an Arabic derived word meaning Jews. The State of Ohio has not suspended Kollab’s license to practice medicine.

In another story of a student or students exhibiting hate, some seventh and eighth graders in OJAI, California are being reprimanded for creating a human swastika at the school. The school has one of the worst records of behavioral problems in the district. A regional office of the ADL has offered to hold classes in acceptance, anti-bias, tolerance and diversity. Cyndi Silverman, the director of the Anti-Defamation League of the Santa Barbara/Tri-Counties Region said that the news that nearly a dozen pre-teens formed a swastika was “chilling.”

This week, a new U.S. Congress started its session. About six percent of its elected members identify as Jewish, with even more harboring Jewish children or grandchildren. Of the 535 lawmakers in the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, 34 identify as Jewish. About 1.7% of American citizens identify as Jewish. By comparison, in the State of Israel, 85% of the 120 MK’s identify as Jewish. In Canada, 2% of the House of Commons members identify as Jewish; and about 1% of the population of the provinces identify as Jewish. Nearly all the members of the U.S. Congress place a specific religion in their biographies. One one, Senator Kyrsten Sinema (D-Arizona) identifies as unaffiliated.

Speaking of the new Congress… welcome to Representative Rashida Tlaib, an attorney and former Michigan member of the state legislature who will be representing the Detroit area of Michigan in Washington, DC. On January 3, Tlaib was sworn in, wearing a traditional Palestinian dress called a qobe. She gained some press yesterday when she used profanity. She told supporters, “And when your son looks at you and says, ‘People love you and you win. Mama, look, you won. Bullies don’t win,’ and I said, ‘Baby, they don’t,’ because we’re gonna go in there, and we’re going to go in there and we’re going to impeach the motherfuckers.” Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi (D, CA) said she didn’t like the use of the expletive, telling MSNBC, “I probably have a generational reaction to it…. I’m not in the censorship business. I don’t like that language; I wouldn’t use that language, but I wouldn’t establish language standards for my colleagues.” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-NY) said, “I don’t like that language. More to the point, I disagree with what she said. It is too early to talk about that intelligently. We have to follow the facts and get the facts.” SPEAKING OF FACTS — Hannah Alam, a journalist who covers Muslim News for BuzzFeedNews tweeted this cute map in Rep. Tlaib’s office. A Post-it Note highlighted that her fact is that Israel should be changed to Palestine.

Someone has already made a slight alteration to the map that hangs in Rashida Tlaib’s new congressional office. pic.twitter.com/mwyshIog4r

— Hannah Allam (@HannahAllam) January 3, 2019