Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Tikkun’s Jewish ‘Ethics’ — Honor Goldstone for Libeling Israel


Jonathan Tobin
Contentions/Commentary
27 April '10

With the rise of groups like the left-wing lobby J Street and the presence of a critic of Israel in the White House, it’s hard for a magazine like Michael Lerner’s Tikkun to get much attention these days. But Lerner is doing his best (or is it his worst?) in an effort to recapture the focus of Jewish leftists. To that end, as Jennifer has pointed out, the magazine has announced that it is giving its 25th annual “ethics” award to Richard Goldstone, the author of the biased and inaccurate United Nations report on last year’s war in Gaza that slandered Israel.

The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reports that Lerner says he decided to give his dubious prize to Goldstone before the brouhaha over whether the South African jurist would be prevented from attending his grandson’s bar mitzvah because of the anger of his fellow Jews at his presence in synagogue. But, Lerner says, he decided to announce the award now as an answer to Goldstone’s “outrageous” treatment.

The controversy over the Goldstone bar mitzvah is regrettable for two reasons. First, because a child’s rite of passage ought to be allowed to proceed without political demonstrations against one of his relatives, no matter how odious that relative might be. Second, because the threat of a demonstration against Goldstone at the synagogue enabled him to pose as a victim of Jewish intolerance rather than owning up to the fact that he allowed the anti-Semites at the UN to use him as a front man for a vicious libel against the Jewish state.

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2 comments:

  1. I don't agree. The entire point of imposing a cherem on an enemy of Israel is to sanction him for harming the Jewish people. If Goldstone pays no personal price for what he did, then its business as usual. Sadly, much of the Jewish community has no zero tolerance for such behavior.

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  2. TY Norman. What's peculiar about this, is that according to many press accounts, he's the one generating the negatives. He was not disinvited, or banned, but seems to created his own bit of self-promotion. Michael Lerner of course playing the part of the always ready, willing accomplice.

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