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March 21, 2023

Putin and Punishment

Jewish Journal of Los Angeles

There’s a lot of talk these days about progressive prosecutors who seem to be acting like defense attorneys in refusing to indict certain criminals in the name of racial equity. They’ve decided to give marginalized racial groups a pass, which I suppose is preferable to indiscriminately arresting and incarcerating Jews, Asians, Indians and white people in order to achieve a prison population more representative of America.

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March 14, 2023

What’s So Neo About Nazis?

White Rose Magazine

IF a marketplace of ideas truly exists with rational actors serving as discerning consumers, then, as we have been assured by free speech absolutists, good ideas will cancel out bad ones. If that’s true of how this marketplace works in practice, then how can the resurgence of Nazism be explained? These ideas should have been flushed away with the Fuhrer. And yet pernicious attitudes about racial superiority and Jewish sub-humanity are still being peddled in far too many circles.

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March 6, 2023

Purging the Jews of “Babylon”

Jewish Journal of Los Angeles

The Academy Awards is soon upon us. One film that will not be walking away with a large Oscar haul is Damien Chazelle’s “Babylon.” (It is nominated for three awards, none in major categories.) That came as a surprise, given the box office and critical success of his last film, “La La Land,” the size of “Babylon’s” budget, and the attractiveness and appeal of its cast, which included Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie.

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February 20, 2023

Israel’s Shadowy Constitition

Jewish Journal of Los Angeles

It’s President’s Day in America, which, for reasons having perhaps something to do with slumbering patriotism, has long been associated with mattress sales. This year, however, there’s a real fear that America’s friend, Israel, is in danger of putting its democracy to bed.

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February 8, 2023

Can We Transcend Our Hyper-Partisan Rage?

White Rose Magazine

WE are living in an age of widespread agitation and an all-encompassing aversion to rise above it all. Nothing can be let go—especially bygones. Olive branches must be burned. Meeting adversaries half-way is too far to travel. And living to fight another day is no better than abject surrender. Living to fight, in fact, is all there ever is.

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February 7, 2023

Of Documents, Balloons and Laptops

Jewish Journal of Los Angeles

Okay, by a show of hands: Who doesn’t have classified documents in his or her garage or sock drawer? Come on. Be honest. Surely someone reading this is hoarding a keepsake from the Eisenhower administration, stashed away in the attic. Better check, because you might be in violation of the Espionage Act. It seems that anyone who is anyone, and even a few nobodies, possibly have state secrets with classified markings and fuzzy provenance.

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January 22, 2023

When it Comes to Hating Jews, Academic Freedom is in Full Bloom

Jewish Journal of Los Angeles

Antisemites come in many different shapes, sizes and even colors these days. Hating Jews crisscrosses ideologies, too—spanning the right and left, standing defiantly on the fringes and even among the less politically extreme.

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January 9, 2023

The Invisible Jews

Jewish Journal of Los Angeles

Should I start with the good news? Okay.

If you are a secular Jew who does not wear religious symbols, skullcaps and attire, isn’t walking toward a synagogue or waving an Israeli flag, and does not live in predominately Jewish neighborhoods in either New York City or London, chances are pretty good that you won’t end up as a statistic in the escalation of antisemitic hate crimes. (If you live in Paris or Stockholm, however, and you’re Jewish, it doesn’t matter what you’re wearing. You can dress like Dua Lipa, and the restive mob of Muslims who are on the lookout for anyone who might be Jewish will probably see through your disguise.)

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December 26, 2022

The Real Woke Jews

Jewish Journal of Los Angeles

As members of the progressive Jewish left continue to raise their fists while marching on behalf of movements that largely hate Jews and really despise Israel—Black Lives Matter, especially, but alarming elements within the LGBTQ community, virtually any campus-wide crusade, and, of course, the remnants of Occupy Wall Street—a beachhead of cultural pride and resuscitation has been erected this week in lower Manhattan at the Museum of Jewish Heritage.

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December 13, 2022

A Hitler Makeover

Jewish Journal of Los Angeles

Whomever is handling publicity for Adolf Hitler these days is, admittedly, doing a nice job. After all, since 1933 the world’s most notorious homunculus has always been treated like an unmentionable monster, a historical leper, incurably too far gone for spin doctors.

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November 29, 2022

Dear Santa

Jewish Journal of Los Angeles

Dear Santa:

Let me begin by acknowledging that I am a fully grown man and a Jew, so you are under no obligation to take my Christmas wish list seriously. After all, I am not your regular clientele.

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November 9, 2022

Et Tu, Brooklyn? Why This Should Be the Last Place for Jew Hatred

Jewish Journal of Los Angeles

Of all the wasted breaths these past few weeks devoted to Kyrie Irving’s tirade against the Jewish people—”Did he take responsibility?”; “Why is he acting like the victim?”; “Was the released statement actually written by him?”; “Should the NBA have acted more quickly and decisively?”—the one item that has not been mentioned, but that may be the most important indictment against this morally obtuse and ignorant point guard, is that such vile Jew-hatred cannot, must not, be allowed in Brooklyn.

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October 30, 2022

Tom Stoppard Reveals His Jewish Self in “Leopoldstadt”

Jewish Journal of Los Angeles

There is no small amount of irony in Tom Stoppard’s latest play, “Leopoldstadt,” dazzling audiences on Broadway at the same time when America’s streets are convulsing in antisemitic mayhem.

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October 26, 2022

Wasted Ballots and Towering Baseballs

Jewish Journal of Los Angeles

It’s a good thing we have the mainstream press to thank whenever antisemitism pervades our politics and culture. When Jews are in trouble, rest assured that the media will shine a light and blare those sirens.J

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October 11, 2022

The Kind of Atonement That Can’t Be Fasted Away

Jewish Journal of Los Angeles

With rising antisemitism now a worldwide phenomenon—manifested in appalling acts of violence and a casual acceptance of defaming Jews in impolite company—and with the gates already closed on Yom Kippur, now might be a good time to suggest making next year’s Day of Atonement a global holiday.

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September 21, 2022

Back to School With AntiSemites

Jewish Journal of Los Angeles

Jewish students have returned to campus for a new year of acquiescent antisemitism—the sinister, sneaky kind that masquerades as human rights, restricts free speech, denies freedom of association, and banishes those who deviate from pre-approved, intersectional viewpoints.

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September 12, 2022

9/11 And the Politics of Insult

Jewish Journal of Los Angeles

Yet another anniversary of 9/11 has just passed, and it’s time to call 9-1-1.

That tragic day of American carnage and Islamist atrocity over 20 years ago is one of the few red-letter dates where we reflect on what was lost rather than scoop-up bargains on mattresses and LED TVs.

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September 9, 2022

Phantom Fantasia in the Middle East

White Rose Magazine

SOMETIMES brainwashing can become so uncontested and thoroughly convincing, what’s left after the spin cycle is nothing but falsehood.

Take the case of the “nation-laundering “of the Palestinian people. Here’s what decades of impeccable PR, global gullibility, and re-imagined anti-Semitism has enabled many to bizarrely believe:

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August 30, 2022

Is Trump the Rosenbergs?

Jewish Journal of Los Angeles

Many Americans would just love to throw the book at Donald Trump, perhaps the most polarizing person in American history. Any book would do. Preferably, a heavy one — but what most have in mind is a law book that comes with prison time and a lifetime ban from public life.

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August 14, 2022

Rushdie and the Satanic Clerics of Iran

Jewish Journal of Los Angeles

In May 2015, the PEN Literary Gala presented its Freedom of Expression Courage Award to the slain cartoonists of the French satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo. Earlier that year, two Islamists gunned down a dozen cartoonists who had the audacity to satirize the Prophet Muhammad.

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