Milo on my Mind

For some reason, the name Milo Yiannopolous has been appearing lately on my Facebook feed. I guess he's in the news a lot now that Donald Trump is president-elect and Steve Bannon is his chief advisor and Bannon is affiliated with Breitbart.com and Yiannopolous is apparently the technology editor at Breitbart so of course social media would be all a-flutter.

I've been remotely aware of Mr. Yiannopolous but not enough to have formulated an opinion about him. I know, for instance, that Twitter has censored him and that college campuses are banning him. Both of these should be enough to commend him. Then again, the rumors, the hearsay. Alt right! White nationalist! Racist! Bigot! Homophobe! (well, scratch that last one. See BBC interview, below). Maybe I should back away slowly . . . .

Anyway, the other day, on two separate occasions, I saw Facebook postings of a year-old article by Milo (the same article, coincidentally, about women studying science and math), accompanied by reactions ranging from sneering dismissal to consternation to outrage. Curious, I decided to read that article, as well as a few others. And as I did, something began to dawn on me. The guy was yanking our chains. He was making outrageous statements almost matter-of-factly. Isn't this one of the characteristics of irony? Saying one thing, meaning another? For instance, in the article about women and math, he wasn't attacking women. He was attacking something else, political correctness, the hypocrisy of social engineering. Where Facebook people saw misogyny, I detected satire.

But then I began to doubt myself. What if Mr. Yiannopolous was, in fact, serious? What if he really did think women didn't belong in the sciences (for instance) or on the Internet (for another instance)? What if these Facebook folks were right and I was wrong?

Fortunately, I belong to an online community collectively known as Ricochet, which bills itself as "the leading place for civil discussion of the center-right and beyond." As a dues-paying member, I have the privilege of initiating a conversation about whatever's on my mind. Today, Milo was on my mind. What better place to learn more about him than on Ricochet.

So I created the post, "Explaining Milo," which includes at last count 144 responses from the Ricochet community. Judging from the responses, I think my initial impression, that he's a satirist, is accurate. And while I'm not quite ready to label him a modern-day Jonathan Swift, I do think he's a provocateur. Many of the commenters on my post seem to agree, though there's some debate as to the efficacy of his approach.

It occurs to me that most people, both right and left (but predominantly those on the left), in taking Mr. Yiannopolous oh so seriously, may be missing the underlying significance of what he's actually saying. Maybe we need to stop freaking out for a moment, unplug our sensitive ears, and listen.

Explaining Milo (Ricochet)

The More Things Change . . .

Before I started this blog, I maintained another blog, which I called Ahem (dumb name, I know. The very first entry explains it). 

I maintained the blog between October 24, 2008 and January 1, 2013. Obviously those dates are significant from a political standpoint: The presidential elections of 2008 and 2012 get quite a bit of attention.

I'm linking a couple of my responses to President Obama's re-election in 2012. 

A Terrible, Horrible, Mistake (Election Day, November 6, 2012) 

Because (The Day After, November 7, 2012).

As you can tell, I was devastated. But what's interesting (to me) is that my reactions are really not much different from the reaction I'm hearing from people this week. Maybe not as over-the-top. And it wouldn't have occurred to me to protest. And I didn't curse (I don't think. Maybe once). But the emotion, the despair...

Plus les choses changent, plus elles restent les mêmes.

"The People Have Spoken--the Bastards"

Yesterday, Election Day in America, I boycotted Facebook, the assumption being that the Hillary people, already insufferable in their giddy expectation of her inevitable coronation, would be even more so the day of her coronation. And though I was never a fan of Donald Trump and agreed with all critiques of his character flaws and his shortcomings, I was never going to vote for Hillary Clinton, no matter how much the Hillary people chided and scolded (and chide and scold they did, day after day, ad nauseam). 

So all through the day and into the evening on November 8, 2016, I cut a wide swath, not only boycotting Facebook, but also Twitter and radio and live TV and chat rooms and even my phone, not even wanting to see a notification. Instead I watched an episode of "Blacklist", and then a repeat of "Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives." When that was finished, I glanced at the clock. It was only 8:30. Damn. Now what. 

So I finally relented and texted a couple of my political junkie friends. 

"Just checking in," I wrote. "What's happening out there?" 

"Turn on your T.V.!" they said. 

And then, of course, the shock, the surprise, the unexpected, the bizarre. 

And before the night was over (well, technically, closer to the wee hours of November 9th), not only had Donald Trump won the presidency, beating his opponent 279-228 in the Electoral College (though losing in the popular vote by 200,000, last I heard), but the GOP also retained majorities in both houses of Congress.

This is no small matter. We (Republicans) had been bracing ourselves for months for losses from top to bottom. The gloom that had settled over many of us, the demoralization, the resignation, was beyond palpable. As election day neared, Trump at best had a 35% chance of winning the presidency, though all the so-called paths to an Electoral College victory were razor-thin. Not only that, his impending loss was supposed to hurt GOP races in the House and Senate and governorships and state legislatures, all the way down ballot. In other words, Election 2016 was supposed to be a tsunami of defeat, a once-and-for-all repudiation of and end to the Republican party. 

So yes, most of us expected the worst, were resigned to the worst, maybe even believed we deserved the worst, especially those of us who were already frustrated and disappointed about the situation. We had lined up our best and our brightest, a deep bench, indeed, including my personal favorites, Marco and Carly. But one by one they fell, knocked ruthlessly aside or, in some cases, stepping nimbly aside, until there was only one man standing, and that man was Trump, Trump the buffoon, Trump the narcissist, Trump the con, Trump the boor. We seethed with resentment because this was supposed to have been our year. So many of us were weary of Obama's executive overreach, his condescension, his divisiveness, and Hillary Clinton was such a weak and beatable opponent. Any of those 17 candidates could have beaten her. Anyone, that is, but Donald Trump. We knew that. We of all people understood that. What is he doing on that stage? Get rid of him now!

Which is why, watching last night's remarkable events unfold, one can only marvel in disbelief at an outcome that never even occurred to us. A Clinton win was a given. The best many of us hoped for was that the GOP would retain majorities in Congress in order to keep her in check. But Trump won. The GOP held on to their majorities in both houses of Congress. I don't know how it happened. This is for historians and pundits and analysts to explain. All I know is that yesterday, for good or for ill, was a political earthquake. And it's becoming clear that, while Donald Trump may not have been our first, our second, even our 17th choice, in the end it appears he was possibly the only one out of that distinguished crowd of 17 who had the chutzpah, the ego, the stomach, the nerves of steel, to take on the formidable Clinton machine and the media who openly and unapologetically supported her--and beat Hillary Clinton at her own game. 

So now, today, The Day After, I venture cautiously back into Facebook, not to contribute, but to listen. And not surprisingly, there's a lot of rage. Here's a sampling: 

"I am pissed beyond measure at the 59,479,296 of you who voted for Trump. With your votes, you supported racism, nativism, sexism, and ableism. You showed that you don’t value education or science. You demonstrated a complete lack of regard for people who aren’t as fortunate as you. Your votes threaten our liberty and undermine the social progress we’ve made in recent years. Your votes embarrass me and disgust me."

"I'm so beyond disappointed in the U.S. We have a disturbingly large number of vile citizens. I don't care about myself. I care about the millions of souls that are in great danger. The millions of lives about to be shattered into so many pieces based on the horrific views and actions of Donald Trump."  

"I find that seeing Trump and his followers win caused a deep sorrow in my heart, that evil had triumphed over good. Yet I must remember to put my future in God's hand and worry about a day at a time. And secondly it is good that there are others out there who have not been taken over by evil."

"This is so tragic and I cannot agree or believe that God's heart is not broken for his people, all people. Tonight, I am grieving for my previous friends, loved ones and strangers of all people groups who are wounded and reeling. I am grieving for myself."

What I find interesting about these comments (and I'm guessing these are the milder versions) is that it doesn't really even matter that it was Donald Trump. Substitute any Republican name and the reaction would be the same. As I recall, the left demonized Mitt Romney in 2012 (pretty sure Hitler's name came up). This time around, they detested Ted Cruz, were repulsed by Carly Fiorina, loathed Mike Pence. In other words, it's not who beat Hillary Clinton. It's that she was beaten. Hillary Clinton could have lost to any one of the candidates and the anger would be no different. Sure, Donald Trump made it pretty easy. His defects are so obvious, so pronounced, it was child's play to wield him as a club to shame and hector and browbeat conservatives (at least, this conservative) into silence and embarrassment. This is who your party has nominated? Are you saying you'll vote for this monster? 

Sometimes Facebook feels like a grade school playground, bullies running roughshod while the rest of us cower in the shadows and eat our lunches. At first glance, it seems the shaming works in that it shuts most people up. It's not worth getting ganged up on. But I can't help but wonder if the shaming might be counterproductive. Because, when asked, or, more to the point, when polled, who would admit that they'd vote for "this monster"? Tell the pollsters anything but the truth. As Jim Geraghty of National Review wrote this morning, admitting that even he had gotten the numbers oh so wrong: 

"Pollsters have had off years before, but there has never been a colossal ten-car pile-up like this in the polling industry. The entire industry needs to scrap everything they know about the electorate and start over. One of the giant questions they must address is whether we now live in an atmosphere of such far-reaching and stifling social disapproval of politically incorrect positions that a significant portion of respondents no longer feel comfortable expressing their actual beliefs to a pollster. There really was a silent majority."

So. Election day arrives. The silent majority emerges from the shadows and casts its votes. And the world goes mad.

There's been a lot of soul-searching on my "team." Maybe those on the left who are so enraged, who regard those who voted for Trump with such contempt, should do some soul searching of their own. Yes, a silent majority spoke, but what did they say? Surely Clinton's loss cannot be laid at the feet of 59 million people. An election is a job interview. Hillary Clinton applied for the job and came up short. It's happened before, and it will happen again. To accuse close to 60 million people who didn't offer her the job as being bigots or racists or misogynists is a cop-out. The way I see it, Hillary Clinton and her party have no one but themselves to blame. Love him or hate him, Donald Trump did what he needed to do. His victory was an apparent repudiation of everything Hillary Clinton represents: leftism writ large, executive overreach, political corruption, cynicism, abuse of power, condescension, arrogance. Those who voted to give Donald Trump a chance are taking a gamble. This could blow up in their faces. But to damn them? 

Let the soul searching begin, America. But let it also begin in the sacred halls of progressivism.

"The people have spoken--the bastards."

(Democratic politician and strategist Dick Tuck, 1966)

The Pros, The Cons: Clinton v. Trump

Wall Street Journal editorial board's analysis of two deeply flawed candidates. Each article is worth reading, but I took the trouble of identifying the salient points (categorized pro and con, as I see them) for each candidate. 

"The Costs of Clinton"

Pros: 

• Might be willing to work with Republicans across the aisle.
• Has shown more respect for America's role in maintaining global order than Trump has.
• Is more hawkish than Obama.

Cons: 

• Would continue President Obama's "progressive march to a French-style welfare and regulatory state" (higher taxes, entitlement spending, subsidies and price controls in ObamaCare, regulations on businesses, enforcement of "liberal cultural values on schools and churches").
• Result of this approach is more years of slow economic growth.
• Less restrained by the courts and more progressive judicial domination for years.
• Foreign policy failures include misjudging Putin ("reset"), support for the nuclear deal with Iran, withdrawal from Iraq, abandonment of Libya.
• More entitlement spending means less spending on military and defense.
• Has a "penchant for secrecy and political paranoia," evidenced most recently in her decision to use a private email server for official business and her subsequent refusal to release records.
• Scandals past and current, including pay-to-play structure via the Clinton Foundation, reflects the problem she has with "blending public office with private gains."
• If elected, she would likely be investigated by Congress for these scandals, so her administration would be hamstrung from the outset.

"The Gamble of Trump"

Pros: 

• Political disruption ("a broken Washington needs to be shaken up").
• His policy impulses are geared to liberate the U.S. economy to faster growth.
• Trump could get a faster start on governing by adopting economic reforms that the GOP-led house has already drafted.
• Trump could fill the Supreme Court seat with a conservative justice. 
• Trump is committed to rebuilding U.S. defenses.
• He is more "aggressive against the Islamic terror threat" than Obama has been.
• Checks and balances in Washington would constrain any "authoritarian" tendencies some fear in a President Trump.
• Likewise, an "awakened" media would "dog his Administration with a vengeance."

Cons: 

• Trump does not have a "coherent and firmly held word view formed by decades of reading and experience."  
• It's hard to predict how Trump would respond to "shocks and surprises" that all presidents face. 
• Trump's position on trade ("a zero-sum game" that America is losing) could cause a recession.  
• His politics are "almost entirely personal, not ideological." 
• Trump's behavior during the campaign has been characterized by "harsh rhetoric" that has alienated and offended women, minorities, and younger voters.
• There's no assurance Trump will keep his promises to change Washington. Angry or disappointed voters could end up repudiating the GOP in 2018 and return us to an "all-progressive government" in 2020. 
• The populist impulses that have emerged from Trump's candidacy can be dangerous when "rooted too much in ethnicity or class."
• Despite his assurances that he wants to build U.S. defenses, he is a "rookie" in world affairs and would be "unusually dependent on his advisers--if he listened to them."
• His "bromance" with Putin is troubling, and Trump's "instincts to retreat to a Fortress America could invite more aggression," not only from Russia, but from China and Iran, as well.

Conclusions

"The case for Mrs. Clinton over Donald Trump is that she is a familiar member of the elite and thus less of a jump into the unknown, especially on foreign policy. The case against her is everything we know about her political history.  

"The Wall Street Journal hasn't endorsed a presidential candidate since 1928, and if we didn't endorse Ronald Reagan we aren't about to revive the practice for Mrs. Clinton or Mr. Trump. Yet one of them will be the next president. The choice comes down to the very high if relatively predictable costs of four more years of brute progressive government under Hillary Clinton versus a gamble on the political unknown of Donald Trump."

It's Not Her Fault!

I'm waiting--in vain, no doubt--for the intellectually honest people of the left (or is that an oxymoron?) to speak frankly and objectively about their candidate. Those of us on the right have been quite frank about "our" candidate. I would expect no less from the left.

Instead, what I'm hearing is par for the course: it's a witch hunt, it's a Republican conspiracy, it's the Russians, and now, the latest, straight out of, you guessed it, academia: "Email-gate is a bitch hunt, but the target is not Hillary Clinton. It’s us."

Ah, yes! The gender card! Before that, the race card! It's never about their guy's malpractice, their gal's malfeasance. The left has become a cliche, and the few good people I know on the left should say so. But...dollars to donuts, they won't.

Prove me wrong, gentlemen and ladies of the left! Let's see whether you're even capable of self-scrutiny.

"Hillary Clinton's Emailgate is an Attack on Women," by Robin Lakoff

  

"The only reason the whole email flap has legs is because the candidate is female. Can you imagine this happening to a man? Clinton is guilty of SWF (Speaking While Female), and emailgate is just a reminder to us all that she has no business doing what she’s doing and must be punished, for the sake of all decent women everywhere. There is so much of that going around" (Robin Lakoff, Professor of Linguistics, U.C. Berkeley).

Texting During Class?

Yes. When it's part of the class assignment.

As an introduction to our next themed unit (Digital Literacies), I began by dividing the class in half, using alphabetized last names (A-F, G-V) and then juggling a few to make sure the class was evenly split. With about 4 absences, I had 11 students in one group and 12 in the other. Then, I asked who had a smart phone. All did.

Then I instructed each group in turn as follows:

Look amongst yourselves and find a partner that you don't know very well.

This isn't hard to do, by the way. We're only in the 6th week, and most students tend to get acquainted with the person sitting directly beside them (or none at all, if they're shy). However, I do have a few sociable students who sit together every class meeting and chat before, during, and after class, and I wanted to be sure those students selected someone else for this social experiment.

After students in each group had partnered up, I directed the partners in Group A to exchange cell phone numbers, and I directed partners in Group B to put their cell phones away (i.e., out of sight). The request to have students exchange cell phone numbers was greeted with a laugh and a few comments ("stranger danger!"). It occurred to me only then that perhaps this could have been a problem, and later I directed students to delete these numbers after our class activity if they wanted to.

Then, I directed members of Group A to remain in the classroom and "have a conversation" with their partner using text messaging only--no talking allowed. Members of Group B, meanwhile, were directed to leave the room and find a spot in the hallway (there are alcoves, seating areas, and benches) and have a conversation with their partners.

Conversation was timed (10 minutes).

When the 10 minutes were up, I invited students from Group B back in to the room, and then directed the students to open their Writing Journal and record their experience of carrying on a conversation via text or face to face with a person they don't know very well.

Then, I asked group members to find another person from within their group that they did not know very well and reverse roles. This time, Group B got to remain in the room and text while Group A was sent out of the room to talk face to face. At the end of the second session, students were again asked to record their experiences.

After a short break, we watched MIT professor Sherry Turkle's TED Talk called, "Connected but Alone?" (link below). An edited interview with Turkle is among the required readings in our Digital Literacies unit, so I thought it would be a good introduction to the concepts the students would be reading about this week. Follow up discussion focused on some of the more salient points Turkle was making, having to do with the impact technology has (or is having) on our ability to interact socially with others, the lost art of communication, the importance of solitude, the use of technology, particularly robotics, as a substitute for human connections.

I asked the students to type up their journaling and bring to the next class meeting, and will be very curious to read their reactions to the "social experiment" of having to spend an entire 10 minutes talking face to face with someone they would otherwise probably not have connected with. One student, in fact, who was in the first group sent out of the room to "talk," said as she returned, "That was a long time!" Interestingly, she's among the "chatty" group I mentioned earlier, and she's also one of my most active texters, who I'm constantly reminding to put away her phone during class discussions).

We ended class the way I always end, with a short video and brief writing response on a 4x6 notecard for attendance (I do this to ensure students will stay to the end and not slip out during break). In keeping with our theme, we watched poet Rives' brilliant presentation, "A Story of Mixed Emoticons," in which he tells a little story illustrated by emoticons (link below). The question I asked students to respond to on their attendance card was, "Has texting ruined or enhanced the art of communication?"


I'm reading their responses now. Some are very insightful.

********** 

"Connected but Alone?" (Sherry Turkle, TED 2010)

"A Story of Mixed Emoticons" (Rives, TED 2008)

A Civil Conversation About Incivility? It's Possible!

The following is an actual Facebook conversation that took place over the course of a few hours on a leisurely Saturday afternoon in August between me and someone I know indirectly (the husband of one of my Facebook friends) but had never met.

The subject had to do with the life-sized nude statues of Donald Trump, created by an anarchist art collective called INDECLINE, that started popping up in several U.S. cities during the month of August 2016. 

One of my friends shared a funny article about the statues. A friend of hers responded by saying the statues were “stupid and un-funny” and wondered whether people would be laughing if a similar statue were displayed of Hillary Clinton. 

I happened to agree with the self-described “party pooper” and ventured into the conversation: “No possible way someone does this to any other candidate, but particularly Hillary Clinton,” I wrote. Someone else concurred, asking if this was free speech "going too far."

That's when Aaron entered the fray. Here's the ensuing conversation. 

Aaron: I'm not understanding something about the reactions here. How is this statue free speech going too far? Saying that it isn't right because "how would you feel if it was Hillary?" shows implicit bias in the judgment of the work. The fights against sexism, racism, ableism are about equity, not equality. When Hillary or any other candidate makes the kind of social gaffes that have come to characterize Trump's campaign, then they are fair play for this kind of ridicule too. Is the statue un-funny, crass, and poor taste? Sure, but that would seem to be the point, reflecting your reactions back on the subject. If Trump can get away with disgusting things like calling out a judge as unfit because of his heritage, or using loaded gender stereotypes to attack female journalists all under the protections of free speech then this certainly should be protected too. Don't make the mistake of conflating your sensibilities with what is protected as speech under our constitution; something I personally find far more unfunny than this statue or the parks department's cheeky response. 

 Me: Fair enough. My only thought here has to do with how people would respond to an over-sized, butt-naked, flabby-bellied, dimply-bottomed, saggy-breasted Hillary Clinton statue with goggly-oggly spectators taking photos and posting them far and wide on social media. Not only would the feminists be outraged, there would be "hell to pay" for whoever the perpetrator was. Politics played dirty (tit for tat?) is fine until a woman is the target (unless, of course, the woman is a Republican, I guess). That's my beef. 

 Aaron: I would agree that someone erecting a statue as you've described would cause outrage. But "tit-for-tat" I think misses my point about the difference between equity and equality; fairness versus sameness. I would have a hard time finding a fair reason Hillary should be depicted as you've describe, but regardless whether I agree or not, I can see a valid argument for the statement the Trump statue makes based on the behavior of the candidate. I think it is completely valid to debate if it would be fair treatment to put up a similar statue of Hillary on the merits of the piece and the statement it makes. What I do not think is right, is doing so just because they did it to Trump. 

 Me: If I'm understanding you correctly (making a distinction between fairness versus sameness), my response would have something to do with examining the thing that makes one type of vulgarity (Trump's) different from another's (Clinton's). Those who find Trump distasteful (Republicans included) have no argument with your point that he deserves this humiliation. Yet what is distasteful about Trump on one level, many find distasteful about Clinton at a higher level. Crude, crass, boorish behavior is bad and should be called out, maybe mocked and satirized. But abuse of power, dishonesty, corruption, not to mention what many of us believe to be abhorrent views about abortion, is, at least in my view, equally distasteful, perhaps even more so. It's easy to deride Donald Trump and say he deserves it. But Hillary Clinton also deserves derision. The distinctions may not be "equal," but in my view, it's "sameness" by analogy, if not equality. Not sure if that makes sense. Hope I haven't offended.   

In either case, I fail to see how full-bodied disproportionately exaggerated over-sized anatomically incorrect nude statues of the objects of our derision helps the debate. All it's done is plunged us several meters deeper into the gutter. And fair or not, my guess is, now that the door has been shoved wide open, we can expect more of the same. Because "tit for tat" is unfortunately how the game is played.

Aaron: I agree with you here. I don't think it helps advance debate either and would rather the collective discussion focus on issues and finding common ground. I think the door has been shoved open but I think I would disagree with you about who did the shoving in this case...Perhaps I am naive, but I believe we can play the game how we choose and tit-for-tat isn't the only way to engage in political circus. What ever happened to "turn the other cheek"? 

 Me: Disappeared with all the other Biblical ideals. 

 Aaron: That may be... but that is getting into a whole other topic. I want to say thank you. I've found this discussion helpful in clarifying some of my own thoughts and I feel like I have more insight to other opposing perspectives. Even though we don't agree on these issues, being able to have a lively back and forth that doesn't devolve into insults and name calling is refreshing. 

So true, Aaron, and well said. I hope we (collectively) can do better, learning how to listen to and maybe even respect people who have different outlooks on life. 

Whose Sorrow is More Important?

A word about the Donald Trump/Khizr Khan kerfuffle.

While in no way excusing Trump's deplorable response to Mr. Khan's speech at the Democratic Convention, and in particular, what he said about Mrs. Khan, I find it extraordinarily disturbing (albeit not surprising) how the left-leaning mainstream media are responding to this situation. Here's how Gary Bauer, former Under Secretary of Education and Chief Domestic Policy Advisor to Ronald Reagan, put it in his daily End of Day report, which I subscribe to:

The same TV networks that have ignored the parents of American heroes who died in Benghazi in part because Hillary Clinton ignored their pleas for better security were quick to give the Kahns a big platform. Mr. Khan was a guest on CNN's State of the Union. Mrs. Khan has an op-ed in this morning's Washington Post.  

In contrast, Pat Smith, mother of Sean Smith, who was murdered in Benghazi, was treated like dirt because she attacked Hillary Clinton, not Donald Trump. MSNBC called her speech offensive and called Khan's memorable. Chris Matthews said, "I don't care what that woman [Pat Smith] up there, the mother, has felt. Her emotions are her own." The Washington Post actually "fact-checked" Mrs. Smith's heartfelt plea for justice for her son.

Double-standard much?

To Be or Not To Be (a Jew): Who or What am I?

A few thoughts on a book I recently finished, Messianic Judaism: A Modern Movement with an Ancient Past, by David H. Stern. This isn't a "review" as much as it is a random collection of thoughts I had while reading. It's messy, but that's probably because my thoughts about all this are messy. But rather than tidy them up, I think I'll just leave them in disarray, like a pile of post-it notes. I'm still trying to sort through ideas and questions. This book is helping, but I have a ways to go.

Speaking of messes, the book itself is a bit of a mess, actually. Lots of typos, if you can believe. And his style of presentation--Roman numeral outline (IIIA1, etc.) can get confusing, particularly when he references sections he previously discussed. I got in the habit of writing page numbers next to those references, just in case I wanted to go back and read them later. Also, there are even errors like talking about an Appendix that is in the book but not in the Table of Contents. Anyone else would have thrown up their hands and tossed the book (or contacted the publisher and offered her editing services, which I almost did). But apparently, I'm a highly motivated and somewhat patient reader, because I read cover to cover, with pencil in hand.  

The best thing I can say about the book is it represents a movement, possibly a significant movement, in terms of Jewish and Christian history. Stern and other Messianic Jews seem to have a sense of purpose, perhaps a calling, to bridge the divide ("the middle wall of partition" mentioned in the New Testament). He explains that "much of this book is occupied with correcting Christian misimpressions of Jewish ideas and practices." Beyond the broader question of whether the Christian church should embrace the Jewish roots of Christianity, Stern advocates for what he calls a "Messianic Jewish Systematic Theology," which he believes will bridge the schism that began around the 1st century when the largely Jewish (Messianic) church began to reach out to Gentiles ("grafted" in to the olive tree, according to Romans 9) and widened around the 4th century when the church, by then comprised predominantly of Gentile believers, insisted that Jews renounce their Judaism if they wanted to be part of the church. That schism obviously persists today, though Stern and others believe there's a renaissance of sorts taking place which they believe will ultimately culminate in "all Israel being saved" (i.e., the nation of Israel will acknowledge Jesus [Yeshua] as Messiah, though not all Jews individually will do so). 

Theology aside, however, I read the book with a personal agenda. Am I a Jew? I've read enough to know that, according to rabbinical teaching (Orthodox), I'm not. Orthodoxy teaches that Jewishness is passed down through the mother, not the father. Nevertheless, this is an issue I continue to struggle with. I'm fairly pragmatic in my thinking, and I try to work things out logically, if I can. And logically speaking, Jewishness is at least partly an ethnicity, though it's also other things (a religion, a culture, an identity, a system, a doctrine, a nationality). Focusing specifically on ethnicity, I refer to analogy. My husband is Japanese; I am not. Therefore my children are half-Japanese. Done and done. My dad is Jewish; my mother was not. My dad may be a non-practicing, secular, atheistic Jew, but belief in the God of Abraham and observance of Torah does not make one a Jew. Ethnically speaking, a Jew is a Jew, despite his rejection of Judaism, the religion. It's blood, it's genetics, it's ancestry, it's ethnicity. Therefore, the way I see it, the son or daughter of an ethnic Jew (father or mother) is half Jewish. 

An acquaintance, who is Jewish by birth and practice but who also believes that Jesus (Yeshua) is the Messiah, told me that the rabbi of her Messianic Jewish congregation is himself, like me, half Jewish on his father's side. Nevertheless, he considers himself a Jew. There's some difference of opinion here, particularly as I read Stern's explanation for what it means to be a Jew in his discussion about the Law of Return, what's known as making aliyah. My friend told me that according to Israel's Law of Return, any one who has a Jewish grandmother is allowed to make aliyah (so that would include me). However, evidently, it's not that simple, and Stern goes into some detail about how even Messianic Jews, who may be 100% Jewish, i.e., who are descended from two Jewish parents and who practice the tenets of Judaism, are denied the right of return if they admit that they are Christian. He writes: 

No other group of Jews is subject to such discrimination in Israel. Jewish Buddhists and Hindus can make aliyah. Jewish members of any 'new age' sect, no matter how odd, can make aliyah. Jewish idol-worshippers can make aliyah. Jewish atheists can make aliyah. Even Jewish known criminals can make aliyah. ...We Messianic Jews would have died in Auschwitz, so why can't we live as Jews in Israel? 

That last sentence makes it pretty clear to me. Blood is blood. Orthodoxy may say I'm not a Jew, but I'm my father's offspring, my lineage can be traced to my paternal grandparents and their parents who emigrated to America from the Ukraine. I may not be a Jew "officially," but there's this thread, frayed, perhaps, but intact, that connects me to that ancestry.

Does it matter? Will I or would I ever "convert"? I don't know. Probably not, at least not now. All I know is there's a connection to my Jewish ancestry, and I'm trying to put it all together with my belief in Christ, which I have no interest in abandoning. I continue to believe he's the Jewish Messiah, though I realize many believing Jews are either offended by this or view this as a heresy. 

Back to Messianic Judaism (the book). Here are some key takeaways: 

• Christianity is Jewish.
• Anti-Semitism is un-Christian.
• Originally, it was the Jews who brought the gospel to non-Jews, not the other way around. Neglecting to evangelize Jews is anti-Semitic.
• The word "Christian" has a very specific meaning: it refers to Gentile believers in Yeshua. Jewish believers are not called Christian--they're Messianic Jews. 
• Messianic Jews are "Jews who follow Jesus [Yeshua] and maintain a loyalty to their Jewish heritage." 
• People who have at least a rudimentary understanding of Christian theology may be familiar with the terms "replacement theology," and "two-covenant" theology. The former refers to the notion that the Jews are no longer God's people--they have been "replaced" by Christians. The latter refers to the teaching that "Jesus brought the covenant through which Gentiles emerge from paganism to know the one true God . . . [since] Jews already have the covenant through Moses . . . they do not need Yeshua the Messiah." Stern rejects both of these interpretations. 

As for who or what I am? I think I found my answer in the section I referred to earlier, on Messianic Jews and Aliyah. Stern writes, "Incidentally, if your mother is not Jewish, then, according to both halakhah [collective body of Jewish religious laws] and the Law of Return, neither are you." 

So, I'm not a Jew. I knew that. He continues. "However, if you have a father or grandparent who fits the Law of Return's definition of 'Jew' [which I do], then, even if you are openly known as a Christian [which I am], you have the undisputed right to immigrate to Israel under a special provision of the Law of Return dealing with non-Jewish descendants of Jews." 

Ah ha! Who or what am I? I'm a non-Jewish descendant of Jews!

Some additional thoughts: Dr. Stern is also the translator of the Jewish New Testament and the Complete Jewish Bible, as well as the author of a commentary on the Jewish New Testament. I purchased and have begun reading the Complete Jewish Bible. One thing I like about the translation is that it's a single book, by which I mean, pagination is continuous. The "old" testament doesn't end on page 1,222, and the "new" doesn't begin on page 1. Rather, the first book of the New Testament (Matthew, or Mattityahu) begins on page 1,223. The two books are one, as Dr. Stern explains in his Introduction:

Thus the New Testament apart from the Old is heretical, and the Old Testament apart from the New is incomplete--two testaments, one Bible. The Complete Jewish Bible graphically presents this unity by eliminating all separation between the Tanakh [the Old Testament] and the B'rit Hadasha [the New Testament] . . . There is no need to collect the first three-quarters of the Bible into the "Old Testament" and the last quarter into the "New." Rather, the Bible is presented as a seamless whole, a unified Word of God, a complete Jewish Bible for all humanity (xx). 

I actually love this. I have more to say on this, in fact. Some other time, perhaps.