Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Clerical Fascist Iranian Regime, Which Stones and Whips Women, Wants to Join 'UN Women' Agency
American Jewish Philanthropist-Publisher-Investor Aryeh Rubin Reminds Historically Liberal US Jewish Community: 'Liberalism is Not Our Religion'
Aryeh Rubin's essay in The Jewish Week, one of America's most influential Jewish community newspapers, is a must-read. He writes:New Bin Laden Tape, Broadcast by Al Jazeera, Threatens France Over Afghanistan, Burqa Ban
CBC TV Analyzes 10 US Attempts to Kill Bin Laden
North Korean Threat Looms Large
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Germany Raises Red Flags Over Rare Earths
Thursday, 28 October 2010
I believe in equality for all. I support civil rights, women’s rights, gay rights, universal health care, feeding the poor, social justice, separation of church and state, access to education, diversity, the arts, animal rights (I have not eaten meat or poultry in 33 years), and more. I marched against the war in Vietnam, protested the bombing in Cambodia, and advocated for affirmative action.
In terms of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I met with the Palestinian leadership, including Yasir Arafat, as part of my peace activism. I believed, up to a point, in Oslo, and maintain that while a failure, it was not a mistake. I am hopeful that the two sides will keep talking until there is a deal.
Still, I have not elevated liberalism to the status of religion. I do not blindly follow the liberal agenda and my convictions take a backseat to my commitment to the well-being of Israel and the Jewish people. Unfortunately, this is not the case for the majority of U.S. Jews, who have substituted liberalism for Judaism and whose actions are often governed by misguided priorities. In lieu of traditional Jewish belief or value systems, many American Jews have adopted what is essentially a theology of universalism and tikkun olam, or social justice. In doing so, much of American Jewry has essentially become de-Judaicized.
When the lives of my family, my friends, and my people are in jeopardy because we are Jewish, when there are very real threats to the continued existence of the State of Israel and by extension the Jewish people, when our enemies have declared that their intention is to annihilate us and are acquiring tools to this end with the world standing by, then my pro-humanist beliefs give way to my commitment to the sanctity and security of Israel and the Jewish people.
American Jewry’s loyalty to the liberal political dogma is disturbing when things are going well for the Jews. But when things are not going well, this behavior is self-destructive and helps our enemies.
Rubin is the managing director of The Maot Group, an investment boutique in Miami, and president of the Targum Shlishi Foundation. Continue reading his essay here.
FULL DISCLOSURE: Confidential Reporter is a former managing editor of The Jewish Week and a former business partner of one of Rubin's oldest friends--a media and public affairs expert, now living in Israel's capital, Jerusalem, with whom Confidential Reporter first worked more than four decades ago when they were both active members of the American branch of Betar, the Zionist youth movement founded by Ze'ev Jabotinsky. Neither Rubin nor The Jewish Week have any connection with China Confidential, a conservative-leaning, foreign affairs blog that has relentlessly exposed and analyzed the Obama administration's attempts to appease and actually align with Islamist Iran (and Islamism in general) in the context of (a) an odious outreach to the so-called Muslim world and (b) anobsession with forcing Israel to withdraw to indefensible borders in order to create an irredentist and almost certainly Islamist Palestinian Arab state.
"The aggression recently shown by North Korea against South Korea may be just the start of a dangerous period with that rogue nation. North Korea has begun a leadership transition that, if history is any judge, could be violent and destructive for its neighbors and adversaries."
Robert K. Ackerman, North Korean Threat Looms Large
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