mentalblog.com comments:
dershowitz has definately learned how to use the "sinas chinam" card.
Their pieces both contained Loshon Hara and Sinas Chinam. Then again, that's the only way to get your point across in today's world (which happens to be really sad).
It's sad that constructive criticism of Chabad is deemed to be sinas chinam.
As for Dershowitz, he actually had the same letter published in the JPost a couple of weeks ago. The notion that he is religious is absurd in light of what he has written in 'Vanishing American Jew' as well as what he said in his recent interview with Abigail Pogrebin in 'Stars of David', her new book. Here's an excerpt from that interview:
"When I'm in the synagogue, I don’t believe a word of it and I'm totally irreligious. When I’m sitting on the beach under the stars in Martha's Vineyard, I get a leap of faith."
If that's not enough, Dershowitz's support for patrilineal descent, his acceptance of his son's intermarriage and his insistence that his intermarried son's children are Jewish would not seem to be consistent with what Chabad or any other group committed to halacha holds.
The saying goes that those who do not stick to the truth must have a good memory. It would serve Dershowitz well to reread his own Chutzpah.
He makes a point of sharing a conversation he had with Meir Kahane o.b.m., while defending a member of his JDL. He told Kahane that he is defending him on the grounds that he would do precisely the same thing for Yasser Arafat.
Most of that book, as well as subsequent articles, is predicated on this very idea: that he is such a pure civil libertarian that he would defend anybody, regardless of how little sympathy he has for that party's views. (In the introduction, he recounts a nightmare in which Mengele asks him to represent him; he does not know what he would do).
So Professor Dershowitz, please cool it about your support for the Orthodox. To quote one of your principals in school, "you have a good mouth but not much of a yiddishe kop"; a little intellectual honesty would be in order.
I found an old article by Dershowitz called "Why Judaism Must Embrace Intermarriage," and respond to him on my blog.
http://jschick.blogspot.com/2006...-up-alan-
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