Rabbi's Message

Arne's Corner

Day in and day out - two crucial leaders - remain under a constant barrage of verbal attacks. They are subjected to an obsessional, unprecedented stream of abuse, distortion, character assassination and malicious fantasies. They are, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Donald Trump. The campaign against them signifies a cultural disorder that borders on the pathological.
               

Netanyahu has his faults. One might list arrogance and his tendency to be a control freak. He doesn't take criticism well. He has failed to deal with the psy-ops war waged so devastatingly against Israel in the court of Western public opinion. Yet his achievements are formidable. He enabled Israel to survive the sustained attempts to weaken it by President Obama, arguably the most hostile American president to date regarding Israel. He has led the Jewish state to become a dynamo in the fields of technology, R & D, and medicine. Yet it's difficult to overestimate the loathing he provokes. His achievements are ignored or blatantly dismissed.

In the U.S., Trump certainly has his faults. One might list his zero concentration span, his disregard for detail, his carelessness with accuracy, his reckless and compulsive tweeting. his coarse and bombastic talk, and his failure to take criticism. Yet his achievements after only one year in office are formidable. He presides over a booming economy with huge job growth. He is restoring the rule of law to immigration, he's rolling back regulation, he's made stellar appointments to the judiciary, he's forcing Saudi Arabia to reform. He's confronting Iran, North Korea, the UN and the Palestinians. Yet, it's impossible to overestimate the contempt with which he is viewed.

Where he and Netanyahu succeed is, in speaking for the great middling center of their electorates - the ordinary people who observe with silent astonishment and fury how the cultural and political establishment (both Dems and Repubs) ignore their concerns.

Middle America understands that under Obama, the rule of law was eroded through illegal immigration and the support of black-power activists against the police.

Middle Israel understands that the difficult and dangerous status quo with the Palestinians is inevitable, given their persistent rejectionism.

That's why they voted for Netanyahu and Trump.        
 

            

 President

Letter to the Editor:

              Lou Zigman,   Member for Over 35 years  

 

For the past two years I have listened to the commentary and opinions and enthusiastic endorsements of the President of the United States and equally enthusiastic condemnation of supporters of the other side of the aisle from the  president of our congregation.    

 

In my humble opinion:  

 

President Trump has DIVIDED America like no other since the Civil War.

 

President Trump has UNITED the World against America as demonstrated by the resolution against Israel and the almost universal condemnation against his incendiary remarks against other countries, their people and the people embodied as part of the Statute of Liberty their descendants.   

 

In my opinion, President Trump was prophetic when he stated that he tells  people what THEY want to hear.

 

And, his words on the campaign trail that - in effect - if he shot someone on the street, half of his supports would probably continue to support him.

 

I just read the words of a well respected person in my profession as a lawyer, Kathleen Miller, which I would like to share: 

 

"There is a fundamental transformation in the way a substantial segment of our culture now processes information.  Critical thinking seems to have gone missing, and with it sound judgments.  Creeping anti-intellectualism has served to turn many of our historical norms on their heads.  Respect for knowledge, articulate expression, and thoughtfulness has been sacrificed to unabashed fervor for 'telling it like it is' - regardless of what 'it' happens to be.  Disregard of facts morphed into disdain for facts, and now here we sit facing somewhat widespread denial that facts even exist.  I have tried to imagine a long-term healthy future for our culture in the absence of the com­mon acknowledgement of the inherent differences between fact, opinion, and emotion, and that is beyond me.

    ... Clearly, the number of people who are willing to degrade the way we process infor­mation has had a dramatic effect in the public square." 

 

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