Responding to an Ancestral Voice: Thoughts on Being (or not being) Jewish

Recently re-read this beautiful book. Such an eloquent, honest, and deeply respectful exploration of his religion. I wish with all my heart that I could convince my dad to read it. But of course he won't. 

This second reading made me wonder (again) why I care, why I'm drawn to Judaism. From what I understand, I'm not considered Jewish, at least according to Orthodox and Conservative definitions. It's not just that I'm a Christian, which would make me apostate in their eyes regardless of heritage or ancestry. It's that my mother was not a Jew. 

I've struggled with this question ("who is a Jew?"), being the parent of three children of mixed ancestry. Their dad is Japanese, which makes them "half" Japanese racially. To suggest that their father's race has no bearing on their racial make-up is ridiculous. Yet that's what is said about me. I'm not a Jew racially even though my father is Jewish. And I'm not a Jew religiously because I believe Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah. In order to be a Jew, I would need to convert (and reject Christianity).

A couple of weeks ago at church, there was a guest speaker who happens to be a Messianic Jew, i.e., a Jewish believer in Jesus, who was invited to speak briefly about Israel (he leads tours). In explaining how he, a Jew, came to believe in Yeshua (Jesus), the man said his mother was an Irish Catholic and his father an agnostic Jew. So technically, legally, I mean, he's not a Jew. That's what I was thinking. Later though, in explaining how he ended up living in Israel, he said that he was told that because he was Jewish, he was allowed to become an Israeli citizen. He was referring to something called the Law of Return ("aliyah") which, according to Wikipedia, is  

. . . Israeli legislation, passed on 5 July 1950, that gives Jews the right of return and the right to live in Israel and to gain Israeli citizenship. In 1970, the right of entry and settlement was extended to people with one Jewish grandparent or people married to a Jew, although they were not considered Jewish under Jewish law.

So this man, not legally a Jew, can be an Israeli citizen. 

And even though I'm not a Jew because my mother was not a Jew, my dad's parents were both Jewish, which means technically, I, too, have the "right of return." 

This is all a bit confusing, and to be honest, deep down I reject the notion that I'm not Jewish. Why I feel that way I can't really explain. Something keeps drawing me to learn more about this ancient religion. From Wouk's Epilogue, these passages stood out:

Maybe I'm responding to "this ancestral voice." But why? My sister, my brother, my father, who share this ancestry, why don't they respond in the same way? 

Wouk understands, and does not judge. I believe he wrote his book as much with them in mind as for people like me. 

I love this book.

A Tale of Two Presidents

Jihad in Paris, France

In the aftermath of the Paris attacks, President Francois Hollande vows a "merciless response" on the "barbarians of ISIS."



Jihad in San Bernardino, California

In the aftermath of yesterday's attack at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernadino, Barack Obama, as is his wont, offered a calibrated, nuanced, tepid, analytical response, offering his "thoughts and prayers" to the victims of this "tragedy," speculating about motive ("possibly related to terrorism, but might also be workplace related"), and decrying once again the ease with which people can get guns in America.

Two attacks. Two responses. A study in contrasts. 

 


#leadershipfail

Links:

"Paris Terror Attacks: Francois Holland Vows Merciless Response to ISIS Barbarity" (Independent) 

"Obama: Still too Easy to Buy Guns in America" (Politico) 

"Obama on San Bernadino Attack: 'Possible This is Terrorist Related' but Could Also be 'Workplace Related" (The Blaze)

San Bernadino Shooting Live Updates (Los Angeles Times)

Random Thoughts on Happiness

WHAT IS THE OPPOSITE OF HAPPINESS?

AND OTHER (UNANSWERABLE?) QUESTIONS

DISCUSS!

Is happiness the absence of pain or grief, or can one be “happy” even while experiencing a loss?

Someone is kind to me, and I’m happy. Someone is mean to me, and I’m not happy. Does happiness depend on circumstances or is happiness a state of mind that doesn’t necessarily alter as circumstances change?

Is it possible to be “happy” when it’s not all about me? When I somehow make other people’s lives better, or take care of someone less fortunate, or more helpless (babies, for example)?

It doesn’t make me “happy” that I have to clean my own toilets. It would make me “happy” if I had a maid. On the other hand, I’m “happy” I have running water, flushing toilets, a nice house, good food to eat. Compared to 80% of the world’s population, I’m a millionaire. Is happiness relative?

It doesn’t make me “happy” that I have to clean my own toilets. However, I’m “happy” when the job is done and my house is clean. Is happiness a sense of accomplishment for having done something productive? This is an analogy. We could be talking about any project.

Which makes you “happier”—the planning (anticipation) of something, or the actual doing of something? When the planned event is over, are you still “happy,” or do you need now something else to plan for and look forward to? Would you still be happy if you never had something to look forward to?

Single, in search of the perfect partner. Married, fantasizing about what it would be like to be single. Is it the pursuit of something and not the apprehension that makes us happy?

Eating makes me “happy,” but eating too much makes me gain weight. I don’t feel happy when I gain a few pounds, so I stop eating at a certain point. Am I “happier” eating or refraining from eating? This is an analogy but I’m not exactly sure what I’m analogizing.

What is the opposite of happiness? Put another way, is happiness an emotion? A state of being? A choice?

************ 

Comment: The above questions I started generating after a conversation with a friend about the topic led to no answers and even more questions. We promised to continue the conversation over a bottle of wine or two next time we got together. Which we did (sort of). Let's keep the conversation going, shall we?

This morning, a podcast that I started listening to recently (Question of the Day, with James Altucher and Stephen Dubner, the latter of Freakonomics fame), addressed similar questions, only better. I link it here. It's Episode 35, "Fleeting Happiness," if you need to do a search.  

"Take That, Bibi"? So Much for Objective Journalism

Big news yesterday having to do with the Iran nuclear "deal," a foreign policy decision of far-reaching and possibly existential ramifications for Israel in particular but the entire region in general. Unfortunately, this "deal," which truth should have been viewed as a treaty and not a deal (a treaty requiring a higher standard for passage in Congress), has become yet another political football, dividing the "usses" from the "thems," and devolving eventually into partisan brinksmanship, invective, and even slander. None of which is surprising, this being Obama's transformed America. 

The "news" was that Obama got his final nostril in the nose-counting that substitutes as debate when Maryland Democrat Senator Barbara Mikulski announced she would support the deal, giving Obama a veto-proof majority when Congress votes this month on whether to accept or reject this deal.  

The press--and by "press," I mean the dominant news outlets--reported the story as a great victory for Obama. As noted in the NewsBuster piece linked below, news anchors were nothing if not giddy when reporting the story. And PBS NewsHour anchor Gwen Ifill descended notch lower with her snarky tweet following the announcement: 

Not surprisingly, the Twittersphere erupted in protest, resulting in this condescending response from Ifill:

Later she tried to downplay the original tweet by claiming to be merely re-tweeting the State Department's talking points. But, as Aaron Goldstein notes in his blog at The American Spectator, "By saying 'Take that, Bibi,' she might as well have tweeted, 'F U Israel." 

Fortunately, there's a residue of objectivity at NPR in the person of ombudsman Michael Getler who faulted Ifill for the tweet and scolded her for her poor judgment. "One would have to lean way over backwards to give her the benefit of the doubt that she was simply shedding light on the administration's view of portions of Netanyahu's arguments," Getler writes. "But to personalize it by saying, 'Take that, Bibi" is, in my book, inexcusable for an experienced journalist who is the co-anchor of a nightly news program watched by millions of people over the course of any week."

Personally, I would go further and suggest that Ifill has basically disqualified herself from any further reporting on the Iran deal. It's one thing to have partisan views; it's another to reveal them publicly. It would be interesting to hear what pundits Mark Shields and David Brooks, regulars on PBS NewsHour, have to say on this issue; Brooks, in particular, being Jewish, and also having a son currently serving in the Israeli armed forces. He's a gentleman and would never critique his colleague (the issue is moot since there's no chance of Judy Woodruff bringing it up, anyway). But how could Brooks not be at least privately appalled by Ifill's shameful tweet?

Sources

"Media Hand Obama 'Major Victory' as Most Oppose Iran Deal" (Kyle Drennan, MRC NewsBusters, September 2, 2015).

"PBS's Gwen Ifill Stands by 'Take That, Bibi' Tweet" (Adam Kredo, Washington Free Beacon, September 2, 2015).

"Take That, Gwen Ifill" (Aaron Goldstein, The Spectacle Blog, The American Spectator, 9/2/15). 

"More Self-Inflicted Wounds" (PBS Ombudsman Michael Getler, September 2, 2015).

"Senator Bob Corker Rails Against the Iran Deal" (Lauren Fox, National Journal, July 23, 2015).

"We Can Thank Bob Corker for Ratifying Obama's Iran Deal" (Aaron Goldstein, The Spectacle Blog, The American Spectator, 9/2/15).

"Obama Doubles Down on Comparing GOP to Iranian Hardliners"(CNN)

#whitelivesmatter, too

Yesterday, in Roanoke, Virginia, a 41-year old black man named Vester Lee Flanagan II, stalked, shot, and murdered two white people, 24-year old Allison Parker and her cameraman, 27-year old Adam Ward, in cold blood and on live T.V. while Parker was conducting an interview on live T.V. Flanagan not only videotaped the murder, he immediately tweeted about it and posted the video on Facebook, sent a 21-page manifesto-type suicide note to the media. Shortly thereafter, he shot himself and died in the hospital. 

Those reporting on the story reveal that the killer was a disturbed, angry, difficult man with a history of violence. Though he accused everyone around him of being racist, including the young woman he murdered (whom he may have once dated), it's clear that he himself was the racist. 

If this were a normal world, today's top stories would have something to do with #whitelivesmatter. But I'm not hearing much about race-related murder. Instead, all everyone's talking about, including Barack Obama, is gun control. Gun control. Not about an angry, bitter black man whose sense of victimization, no doubt fueled by the Left's divisive identify politics and the incendiary rhetoric of race-baiters like Louis Farrakhan, whose July 30th speech called for "10,000 men to rise up and stalk them and kill them," led to him stalking and murdering two beautiful talented young people in cold blood. 

Will Barack Obama repudiate Farrakhan's repugnant words? Is this a trick question? Of course Barack Obama won't repudiate Farrakhan. Nor will he pontificate about black racism. Nor will he appeal to the higher nature of both blacks and whites in the spirit of Martin Luther King, Jr., that all lives matter.

Of course, it goes without saying, if Flanagan had been white and his victims black, there would be 24/7 hand-wringing on cable news and riots in Roanoake, Virginia. Yet while Obama et al are exploiting this tragedy for their own political agenda, let the record show that not only was Vester Lee Flanagan II black, he was also gay, he was a Democrat, and he was an Obama supporter. His sense of grievance, his sense of victimization, his claims of bigotry and racism directed towards him, were validated and reinforced by the #blacklivesmatter movement promulgated by the Left. In simple terms, Vester Lee Flanagan II is a product of this poisonous message. 

Hence, the silence from the talking heads about what was clearly a hate crime committed by a black racist. Had he lived (the coward committed suicide), it is likely he would eventually have been lionized by the left. A new #blacklivesmatter meme would have been created to justify his actions, much the same as the left made up the hands-up-don't-shoot meme after the Michael Brown shooting, even though Michael Brown not only never raised his hands in surrende, it was he who was the aggressor. It was all a total lie, but truth doesn't matter to the left, only the message. So in that regard, I'm glad glad glad Vester Lee Flanagan died yesterday. All we have now are the facts. His suicide note. His video. His tweets. His work history. His Facebook rants. And the blood of Allison Parker and Adam Ward staining his wicked, depraved soul.

What's next? More of the same? Is it too much to hope, for Parker and Ward's sake, at least, that this tragedy will usher in a new conversation, a conversation not about white lives or black lives mattering but all lives mattering? It like such a cliche, but it's not. The phrase "all lives matter" is now on the hit list of politically incorrect things to say. So, unfortunately, I don't think that particular conversation will take place until Obama is out of office and until a man or woman with integrity, courage, and conservative values is elected president. I believe Barack Obama has done more to divide this country along racial lines than unite it. And until he rebukes radical racists like Louis Farrakhan, it's safe to say Obama bears some responsibility for what happened yesterday morning.

Rest in peace, Allison Parker and Adam Ward.