mentalblog.com comments:
The declaration by A. B Yehoshua that "Jewish life in America is meaningless" only emphasizes how LITTLE Jewish life actually exists among Israelis.
The "Greats" of Israeli culture and public life today include Eddie Butler, a non-Jewish African-American who will represent Israel (Israel???) this year at the Eurovision Song Contest; Dana International, a transvestite who represented Israel at the same contest and now features in many Israeli radio and TV commercials; Yigael Tomarkin, Israel Prize recipient and especially talentless sculptor who wants to be cremated and proudly declares that the Nazis were right about annihilating Orthodox Jews and that finishing Hitler's job is a moral imperative; a whole host of retired and current politicians who have almost brought respectability to the terms "corruption" and "banana republic".
This has become a society so obsessed with forbidden sex that child molestation is rampant throughout the country, many teenagers prostitute themselves for pocket change or blue jeans, and the pack rape of a 12-year-old by 30 soldiers at an air-force base dropped off the headlines the day after it appeared. Locally-written novels in modern Hebrew (culture!) are littered with trashy sex plots of the crudest, most rank and infantile nature.
A fifth of the Israeli population stood in line for handouts of potatoes, matzoh and basic foodstuffs before Pesach because they couldn't afford to purchase food for the holidays themselves - but Mercedes sold several HUNDRED cars here in the past few days, some at astronomical prices. There is nothing Jewish in any of this.
When Bill Clinton visited here some years ago during Chanuka and attended a candle-lighting ceremony, all the Americans accompanying the President knew to bring a Kippa and put it on for the blessings; the Israeli dignitaries stood around bare-headed, unprepared and looking stupid.
When Al Gore visited here as the special guest of honor for the 50th Independence Day ceremonies, Pa'amonei Hayovel, he made a Shehecheyanu (!!!) and was the only speaker to even mention the Bible - no Israeli politician would dare make reference to such a 'backward' thing.
Now overblown, pompous and proudly ignorant secularists like A. B. Yehoshua prove to all that Jewish life actually exists much more OUTSIDE Israel than in it.
Oh, when Al Gore visited for the 50th, another Israel Prize recipient and "Cultural Great" Ohad Naharin was the director the Batsheva Dance Group which was to perform at the same event. He insisted that the dancers strip nude for their dance but the policy people decided that this might offend someone (VP Gore? The Chief Rabbis?) - and Naharin went on strike on the spot. Sometimes Israel is an embarassment to everything that the Jews strove for over the centuries.
Tamarkin's father was a nazi officer, right?
Just for the sake of curiosity is Tomarkin also related to the Chabad Tomarkins ?
The challenge is not in finding the warts (this is much too easy - everyone and their dog can and does do this), but in standing back to see the beauty.
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