John F. Kennedy in His Own Words

   It's that time of year again, the terrible anniversary engraved forever in the minds of all those old enough to remember.  But this time it's the fiftieth, and the media are replete with retrospectives.  There isn't much I can add in that genre that I have not written in previous anniversary posts on this blog, so I will simply post one of his famous speeches, the "Negro baby" civil rights speech delivered in June 1963.  One might reflect on the progress we made as a nation since then; that American soldiers would have to be deployed on American soil to ensure that a black American could attend college seems almost unbelievable today, and who would have dared imagine 50 years ago that we would have an African-American president today?  Here is the speech that would bring this country closer to its founding principles:

Radio and Television Report to the American People on Civil Rights

President John F. Kennedy

The White House

June 11, 1963 

     Good evening my fellow citizens: 

     This afternoon, following a series of threats and defiant statements, the presence of Alabama National Guardsmen was required on the University of Alabama to carry out the final and unequivocal order of the United States District Court of the Northern District of Alabama. That order called for the admission of two clearly qualified young Alabama residents who happened to have been born Negro. 

     That they were admitted peacefully on the campus is due in good measure to the conduct of the students of the University of Alabama, who met their responsibilities in a constructive way. 

 

     I hope that every American, regardless of where he lives, will stop and examine his conscience about this and other related incidents. This Nation was founded by men of many nations and backgrounds. It was founded on the principle that all men are created equal, and that the rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened. 

     Today we are committed to a worldwide struggle to promote and protect the rights of all who wish to be free. And when Americans are sent to Viet-Nam or West Berlin, we do not ask for whites only. It ought to be possible, therefore, for American students of any color to attend any public institution they select without having to be backed up by troops. 

     It ought to be possible for American consumers of any color to receive equal service in places of public accommodation, such as hotels and restaurants and theaters and retail stores, without being forced to resort to demonstrations in the street, and it ought to be possible for American citizens of any color to register to vote in a free election without interference or fear of reprisal. 

     It ought to be possible, in short, for every American to enjoy the privileges of being American without regard to his race or his color. In short, every American ought to have the right to be treated as he would wish to be treated, as one would wish his children to be treated. But this is not the case. 

     The Negro baby born in America today, regardless of the section of the Nation in which he is born, has about one-half as much chance of completing a high school as a white baby born in the same place on the same day, one-third as much chance of completing college, one-third as much chance of becoming a professional man, twice as much chance of becoming unemployed, about one-seventh as much chance of earning $10,000 a year, a life expectancy which is seven years shorter, and the prospects of earning only half as much. 

     This is not a sectional issue. Difficulties over segregation and discrimination exist in every city, in every State of the Union, producing in many cities a rising tide of discontent that threatens the public safety. Nor is this a partisan issue. In a time of domestic crisis men of good will and generosity should be able to unite regardless of party or politics. This is not even a legal or legislative issue alone. It is better to settle these matters in the courts than on the streets, and new laws are needed at every level, but law alone cannot make men see right. 

     We are confronted primarily with a moral issue. It is as old as the scriptures and is as clear as the American Constitution. 

     The heart of the question is whether all Americans are to be afforded equal rights and equal opportunities, whether we are going to treat our fellow Americans as we want to be treated. If an American, because his skin is dark, cannot eat lunch in a restaurant open to the public, if he cannot send his children to the best public school available, if he cannot vote for the public officials who will represent him, if, in short, he cannot enjoy the full and free life which all of us want, then who among us would be content to have the color of his skin changed and stand in his place? Who among us would then be content with the counsels of patience and delay? 

     One hundred years of delay have passed since President Lincoln freed the slaves, yet their heirs, their grandsons, are not fully free. They are not yet freed from the bonds of injustice. They are not yet freed from social and economic oppression. And this Nation, for all its hopes and all its boasts, will not be fully free until all its citizens are free. 

     We preach freedom around the world, and we mean it, and we cherish our freedom here at home, but are we to say to the world, and much more importantly, to each other that this is the land of the free except for the Negroes; that we have no second-class citizens except Negroes; that we have no class or caste system, no ghettoes, no master race except with respect to Negroes?

 

     Now the time has come for this Nation to fulfill its promise. The events in Birmingham and elsewhere have so increased the cries for equality that no city or State or legislative body can prudently choose to ignore them. 

     The fires of frustration and discord are burning in every city, North and South, where legal remedies are not at hand. Redress is sought in the streets, in demonstrations, parades, and protests which create tensions and threaten violence and threaten lives. 

     We face, therefore, a moral crisis as a country and as a people. It cannot be met by repressive police action. It cannot be left to increased demonstrations in the streets. It cannot be quieted by token moves or talk. It is time to act in the Congress, in your State and local legislative body and, above all, in all of our daily lives. 

     It is not enough to pin the blame of others, to say this a problem of one section of the country or another, or deplore the fact that we face. A great change is at hand, and our task, our obligation, is to make that revolution, that change, peaceful and constructive for all. 

     Those who do nothing are inviting shame as well as violence. Those who act boldly are recognizing right as well as reality. 

     Next week I shall ask the Congress of the United States to act, to make a commitment it has not fully made in this century to the proposition that race has no place in American life or law. The Federal judiciary has upheld that proposition in the conduct of its affairs, including the employment of Federal personnel, the use of Federal facilities, and the sale of federally financed housing. 

     But there are other necessary measures which only the Congress can provide, and they must be provided at this session. The old code of equity law under which we live commands for every wrong a remedy, but in too many communities, in too many parts of the country, wrongs are inflicted on Negro citizens and there are no remedies at law. Unless the Congress acts, their only remedy is in the street.

     I am, therefore, asking the Congress to enact legislation giving all Americans the right to be served in facilities which are open to the public--hotels, restaurants, theaters, retail stores, and similar establishments. 

     This seems to me to be an elementary right. Its denial is an arbitrary indignity that no American in 1963 should have to endure, but many do. 

     I have recently met with scores of business leaders urging them to take voluntary action to end this discrimination and I have been encouraged by their response, and in the last 2 weeks over 75 cities have seen progress made in desegregating these kinds of facilities. But many are unwilling to act alone, and for this reason, nationwide legislation is needed if we are to move this problem from the streets to the courts. 

     I am also asking the Congress to authorize the Federal Government to participate more fully in lawsuits designed to end segregation in public education. We have succeeded in persuading many districts to desegregate voluntarily. Dozens have admitted Negroes without violence. Today a Negro is attending a State-supported institution in every one of our 50 States, but the pace is very slow. 

     Too many Negro children entering segregated grade schools at the time of the Supreme Court's decision 9 years ago will enter segregated high schools this fall, having suffered a loss which can never be restored. The lack of an adequate education denies the Negro a chance to get a decent job. 

     The orderly implementation of the Supreme Court decision, therefore, cannot be left solely to those who may not have the economic resources to carry the legal action or who may be subject to harassment. 

     Other features will also be requested, including greater protection for the right to vote. But legislation, I repeat, cannot solve this problem alone. It must be solved in the homes of every American in every community across our country. 

     In this respect I want to pay tribute to those citizens North and South who have been working in their communities to make life better for all. They are acting not out of a sense of legal duty but out of a sense of human decency. 

     Like our soldiers and sailors in all parts of the world they are meeting freedom's challenge on the firing line, and I salute them for their honor and their courage. 

     My fellow Americans, this is a problem which faces us all--in every city of the North as well as the South. Today there are Negroes unemployed, two or three times as many compared to whites, inadequate in education, moving into the large cities, unable to find work, young people particularly out of work without hope, denied equal rights, denied the opportunity to eat at a restaurant or lunch counter or go to a movie theater, denied the right to a decent education, denied almost today the right to attend a State university even though qualified. It seems to me that these are matters which concern us all, not merely Presidents or Congressmen or Governors, but every citizen of the United States. 

     This is one country. It has become one country because all of us and all the people who came here had an equal chance to develop their talents. 

     We cannot say to 10 percent of the population that you can't have that right; that your children cannot have the chance to develop whatever talents they have; that the only way that they are going to get their rights is to go into the streets and demonstrate. I think we owe them and we owe ourselves a better country than that. 

     Therefore, I am asking for your help in making it easier for us to move ahead and to provide the kind of equality of treatment which we would want ourselves; to give a chance for every child to be educated to the limit of his talents. 

     As I have said before, not every child has an equal talent or an equal ability or an equal motivation, but they should have an equal right to develop their talent and their ability and their motivation, to make something of themselves. 

     We have a right to expect that the Negro community will be responsible, will uphold the law, but they have a right to expect that the law will be fair, that the Constitution will be color blind, as Justice Harlan said at the turn of the century. 

     This is what we are talking about and this is a matter which concerns this country and what it stands for, and in meeting it I ask the support of all our citizens. 

     Thank you very much.

 

 

Calling terrorism by its name

   This is right on the money regarding the double standard used by the mainstream media in reporting terrorist murder in Israel.

http://unitedwithisrael.org/calling-terrorism-by-its-name/

The Big Weiner

Help! I have to pay taxes but I'm without representation in Congress. So are all the other poor heavily taxed voters in Congressional District 9. Our Congressman, Anthony Weiner, resigned over a sex scandal, or perhaps a non-sex, or just plain nonsense, scandal. It will be several months before we can have a special election for someone to warm Weiner's seat until the regular election in November 2012, by which time the district may well be gerrymandered out of existence in the mandated redistricting. New York is slated to lose two seats in the House of Representatives based on the results of the latest census.

Remember former Governor Eliot Spitzer? He too resigned over a sex scandal, when his patronizing of prostitutes (okay, high-class "call girls") came to light. He was known in the little black books as "Client Nine." Maybe there's some kind of jinx in the number nine. But Mr. Weiner never, as far as is known, had sex with a prostitute or with anybody other than his new wife. The whole donnybrook is over pictures sent to women (and a 17-year-old girl) over the internet. The pictures are all over the Web now, and we can judge them for ourselves. Just Google "Weiner crotch" and "Weiner shirtless." Somehow, conservative columnist Andrew Breitbart got hold of some of them and made them public. I nominate Andrew Breitbart for tzara'at. He is guilty of gossipmongering for transparent political reasons. Anthony Weiner has been a most effective Congressman, delivering the goods to his district (e.g. "Weiner's Cleaners" powerwashing graffiti off walls) and advocating for a strong foreign policy, and bucking his own Democratic Party in the process. He is also a skilled debater and a forceful advocate for President Obama's health care reforms. I have my reservations there, especially as regards his single-payer proposals. I also want to keep the generous health-care package that the United Federation of Teachers negotiated for me. But these issues deserve to be debated on their merits, not scuttled by dirty gossip from the opposition.

As far as I am aware, the Congressman did not send pictures of himself naked, as so much of the media implied. He sent pictures of himself in his underwear, with a discreet outline of his genitals visible. People of a certain age will remember "Underwear That's Funtawear." The men's briefs featured a strategically placed "Big Mac" or "Home of the Whopper" (I'm sure McDonald's and Burger King raked in handsome profits). The women's panties declared their owners "Slippery When Wet." None of us got particularly uptight; if we didn't like the message we didn't wear the underwear. And today pictures much more risque than the ones Mr. Weiner sent out are all over the web.

Are the Weiner photos any worse than this wrestler, available on a public site?

As far as the shirtless photos go, the man was in a gym for heaven's sake. What is inappropriate about being bare-chested in a gym? Those poor women saw nothing that all of us do not see every day this time of year. Add to that guilt-by-innuendo, when columnists opined that "some of the women might have been under age." The people making the charges have the burden of proof, and none was forthcoming. The age of consent in New York is seventeen. Authorities in the jurisdiction where the 17-year-old in question resided did not have a problem, and neither did the girl's parents, so why do the media have a problem? Conservative pundit Dennis Prager declared that what the Congressman did was worse than an extramarital affair (in which more than one Congressman is known to have indulged), and asked if a teenage boy would rather have his father look at raunchy pictures or have an affair. Well, I'd rather he looked at pictures. Nobody ever contracted a venereal disease from pictures. So Mr. Weiner gave in to a yetzer hara. We all do that on occasion.

What bothers me more than sending the pictures is lying about them once they came to light. If Mr. Weiner was running for the first time, that probably would have caused me to vote against him or sit out the election. But he was our Congressman for a long time, and a very good one. As long as he did not break the law or Congress' code of ethics, the media feeding frenzy was far more unseemly than anything Weiner did. And the feeding frenzy is going to have a chilling effect on the body politic for years to come. If sainthood is now a requirement for public office, who would want to seek public office? Everyone of us is a package. You take us with our good qualities and our faults. And ordinary people will also suffer. I am a biology teacher. It is not beyond the realm of possibility that a 13-year-old student could contact me on the Web with questions about human reproduction. I have no way of verifying her age; neither, probably, did Mr. Weiner. If I keep the conversation on a high level (anatomical names for body parts) but give the student the straight answers she was probably not getting at home or in school, have I done anything wrong? Might I get in trouble for it years down the pike? Such a climate of fear is not healthy for teachers, students or other living things.

We live in a society where sex is used to sell everything from automobiles to zirconia. It is hypocritical, to put it mildly, to jump on a Congressman who sent pictures of himself that were mildly inappropritate (I would not have sent them if I were in his place). So now we lost an effective public official over a tempest in a teapot. Stay tuned.

A Parsha Thought - Yiftah in His Generation

Tomorrow we read my bar mitzvah parsha, Hukkat, with its haftara recalling the war conducted by the judge Yiftah against Ammon. Our sages tell us that Yiftah was not the best of the judges, that he was a ba'al gaavah (arrogant fool) who made a rash vow and was too proud to go to the High Priest and have it annulled. We are told, "Yiftah in his generation is as Shmuel in his generation," Shmuel being the paradigmatic wise and scholarly leader of the nation. Our leadership may not be ideal, but if it is the best our generation can produce we have to follow it.
Let's look at the character of Yiftah. He is a gibor hayyil, a military man from a wealthy and prominent family. But he had problems early on. He was born to an isha zona, some sort of innkeeper or secondary wife; the word zona in Tanakh does not necessarily connote a prostitute. In an echo of what we see with Yitzhak and Yishmael ("the son of this handmaid shall not inherit with my son Yitzhak"), and what so often happens in polygamous societies, the sons of the primary wife dispossessed Yiftah and threw him out of the house. Others gravitated to him and they lived by their wits until the leaders of the nation asked them to fight the Ammonites. The text characterizes Yiftah's followers as anashim reikim, empty people. But if they were so empty, why were they chosen to spearhead the campaign against Ammon? I submit that Yiftah was a "tough guy," young, strong, ready to fight at the drop of a hat, and a natural leader. His followers were tough guys like himself, dispossessed, empty of material wealth, living on what they could honestly acquire with their strength if not by outright banditry. They had a little bit of Eisav in them. Brothers do share genes, and sometimes you need an Eisav to deal effectively with the Nimrods of the world, and the Ammons. They would have been empty of scholarship as well; most people living hand to mouth have neither the time nor the inclination to sit in yeshiva. But Torah learning was not going to chase away the Ammonites. Yiftah and his gang were up to the task, and the powers that be wisely recruited them.
Today, alas, we are afflicted with a total vacuum of leadership. We don't have Shmuels, scholars who live in the real world and can teach us how. At any rate, such men are not in positions of authority. Our "leaders" are old fools who think they can erase reality be banning books. The lifestyle they promote is an unsustainable fantasyland where one need not work for a living with one's brains or one's hands, where "the Lord will provide," somehow, perhaps with thieves and professional schnorrers. And we don't even have a Yiftah. The people who figured so prominently in building the state, empty of Torah learning but full of mesirut nefesh, willing to sacrifice themselves to lay a foundation upon which a structure of learning can be built, are no more. Obama says jump, and we all say how high. Or perhaps Obama says don't jump, don't build up your land, don't build in your capital, and we say how deep a hole should we crawl into. I don't see this ending well, unless we somehow: 1. Take back the Torah from the doddering old fools who make a travesty of it, and 2. Find political leaders with the backbone to defy the movers and shakers who were never very comfortable with the idea of strong Jews in a strong state.

Hodesh Ziv - The Month of Brightness

In Sefer Melakhim (Kings 6:1,37) the second Biblical month, known to us as Iyar (the names of Jewish months are post-exilic and of Babylonian provenance), is characterized as Hodesh Ziv - the month of brightness. The commentators advance several explanations. One that sticks in my mind is that the winter's cold is gone but we do not yet suffer from summer's stifling heat. I handle summer's heat just fine, thank you very much. I acclimatized instantly to last week's 80-degree heat but this week, with temperatures unseasonably cool, I had to break out the space heater. I have to chuckle at the commentators' struggles. Praise God, we do not need a perush (commentary) to tell us why Iyar is a month of brightness. It is obvious to all who have eyes to see - and there are none so blind as those who do not. Iyar is the month when we resumed our sovereignty, reclaimed our manhood and, nineteen years later, regained control over the whole of our eternal capital, Jerusalem.

Tomorrow, 28 Iyar, is Yom Yerushalayim, when we celebrate the reunification of our capital. As with the Berlin Wall 22 years later, the wall through the heart of the Holy City came down in a flash, and Jews and Arabs from either side mingled freely with unbounded joy. Who did not thrill to Mota Gur's voice crackling over the radio: Har Habayit b'yadeinu. The Temple Mount (literally "Mountain of the House") is in our hands. Later on I became aware of a soldier in Sinai who heard it over the radio, and with a poker face asked a comrade, "I heard about some house mountain that is in our hands; do you have any idea where it is?", and the comrade shouted, "What! Jerusalem! Ask who captured it!" Ever since, people of all faiths have been able to worship at their holy places. For nineteen years the Jordanians, in violation of the armistice they signed, did not allow Jews to visit the kotel or any other site in "their" part of the city, and even ripped up gravestones on Har Hazeitim for stables and latrines.

After the liberation of Jerusalem, Golda Meir forthrightly announced to the world that its future was not negotiable. Subsequent Israeli governments, whatever their policies regarding "the territories," hewed to that stand on Jerusalem, that it is the eternal, indivisible capital of Israel, until the disaster known as Oslo 1 in 1993. Jerusalem was on the chopping block along with everything else, and make no mistake, the Arabs will not be satisfied with anything less than the whole enchilada. Now a supposedly right-wing Prime Minister, and let's not forget he is the man who gave away 80% of Hevron, kowtows to President Obama and freezes construction of Jewish homes in the capital of the Jewish state. According to a report on Arutz Sheva, American inspectors are traipsing around Israel's capital and reporting to Obama's envoy George Mitchell on violations of Obama's diktat. Who will have the guts to stand up and tell Obama that Israel is not an American colony, nor is it the 51st state. We will build anywhere in Jerusalem, and indeed throughout Israel, that we wish. And if that puts Israelis in conflict with certain segments of the Orthodox commun ity in America, as it does when Jerusalemites decide to build a sports stadium in their city, so be it. Besides being the ir hakodesh, Jerusalem, praise God, is a living breathing city in a way that few would have even imagined a century ago.

It has become customary on Yom Yerushalayim to hold a rikudegalim, where throngs of people dance through the streets of the Old City singing and carrying Israeli flags. Unfortunately, rikudegalim has become an occasion for gratuitous offense toward the city's Arab residents, such as noisily pounding on their doors. Leaders in our community have asked dancers to refrain from such behavior tomorrow, and I hope and pray that they will. Yerushalayim is the City of Peace, and we should live in peace with anyone willing to live in peace with us.

We daven Ma'ariv tonight with the Yom Tov niggun, and end hashkivenu with hapores sukkat shalom aleinu. . . v'al Yerushalayim, as on Yom Tov. Tomorrow morning we say the long psukei d'zimra as on Hoshana Rabbah, and the complete Hallel. After the shir shel yom, I always add Monday's psalm, "gadol Hashem umehullal me'od b'ir elokeinu har kodsho." May it be God's will that next year we will dance the flags on to the Har Habayit, right up to the rebuilt Beit Hamikdash.

Hag Sameah

Wishing all my readers a joyous Yom Ha'atzmaut. If you're in Brooklyn come to Yeshivah of Flatbush at 919 East 10 Street for a proper Ma'ariv with Hallel led by my principal emeritus Rabbi David Eliach. It will be followed by an Israeli cafe night for a nominal contribution.
Never mind the people knocking us. We've been kicking butt since 1948 and we'll continue to kick butt til Mashiach comes. Obama & Co. only think they're in charge. We know who really is. Click here.

Just Blame the Unions

As much as I admire the New York Post for its courageous and politically incorrect editoral stand on the existential threat to our nation from militant Islam, I am sick to death of its bashing municipal unions in general and teachers and their unions in particular. (Full Disclosure: I teach in the New York City public schools and am a member of the United Federation of Teachers, the union that represents New York City public school teachers.) To read the Post, the city's unions are the new Jews. There is no ill or misfortune affecting the city that its unions are not responsible for. Transit fares about to rise? Never mind the waste and inefficiency in the system. Forget that its top executives get to work in chauffeured limousines, although their workplace is eminently accessible by subway. Just blame the hard-working transit workers and Transport Workers Union Local 100, which represents them. Health care a mess? Never mind the city closing hospitals in the face of an aging population in need of health care more than ever. It's the ridiculously underpaid health care workers and the unions which represent them. Children don't learn? Must be the lazy and incompetent teachers and the UFT, that all-powerful teachers' union that owns and operates the legislature in Albany. Sounds like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion?



Sometimes I wonder if the Post's columnists and editorial writers read their own paper. Take some short blurbs in yesterday's paper and read between the lines. It is not uncommon for teachers in New York City to have side jobs and even side businesses. Such teachers must hew to stringent conflict-of-interest regulations. If not for moonlighting public school teachers, many yeshivot would have a tough time getting qualified secular teachers. A teacher who is also a licensed attorney with a priviate law practice is quite unusual, but not unheard-of. It appears that one such teacher, Alan Rosenfeld, has been languishing in a teacher reassignment center, commonly known as a "rubber room," since 2001. Teachers brought up on disciplinary charges are sent to rubber rooms while they await adjudication of their cases before arbitrators. Unless they are accused of crimes they draw full pay and benefits. According to columnist Andrea Peyser, this poor soul was accused of "leering at the rear ends of junior-high girls." No inappropriate touching, mind you. Nothng like what goes on in yeshivot all over the city. Just "leering." Well, would you want a teacher who spent the whole period writing on and talking to the board? We're supposed to interact with our students. That includes looking at them. What's the difference between looking and leering? That depends on who you ask. The same columnist incredulously states that the accused teacher was "cleared to teach." Ms. Peyser, that's what disciplinary hearings are for. Teachers have unions to protect them from being fired on some administrator's whim. We are entitled to due process. Charges have to be substantiated. That's what disciplinary hearings are for. If the administration fails to substantiate the charges at a hearing, the teacher is cleared to teach. A letter to the editor has the same teacher doing more than looking or "leering." He made "sexist comments" to students. Remember Lawrence Summers? The president of Harvard University? He was forced out for suggesting that there might possibly be biological differences between men and women that affect their aptitude for math and science. Politically incorrect statements should not be a firing offense, and this teacher was cleared to teach after a hearing. A news story in the same issue tells how Kenneth Feinberg, President Obama's executive-pay czar, is looking at ways to streamline the process of getting rid of bad teachers. Buried in the story we find the person that engaged him - none other than Randi Weingarten, ex-president of the UFT and now the head of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the national teacher's union. Well, well. I thought that teachers' unions were interested only in protecting the jobs of bad teachers. The same story accuses poor Mr. Rosenfeld of making "sexual advances" at students. Leering, sexist comments, sexual advances. . . . Columnists, editorial writers and people who write letters to the editor usually do not have to substantiate their charges. Neither do bloggers. Fortunately for the principles this nation was founded on, administrators seeking to fire public school teachers do.



Now a word of advice from a veteran teacher. This may be news to you, but teachers are not plaster saints. They are human. Some of us are healthy, in shape and able to function without benefit of little blue pills. Many of our female students deliberately dress provocatively, and when they do so we look. How can it be otherwise? Are we made out of stone? Many of our educational woes would disappear if only parents would be parents and not pals. If you don't want your daughter's teachers to leer at her rear end, do not send her to school dressed in a manner that calls attention to her rear end, or to any other body part that may be leered at. Let her instead call attention to her brains and her achievements.

Congratulations Mr. President.

Congratulations America. We just performed our time-honored ritual of inaugurating a new President. One of the functions of ritual is to connect us with our past. When a Jew puts on tefilin or eats Matza on Pesah, he connects with the Vilna Gaon, the Rambam and Rabbi Akiva, who did the same things. As Americans, we connected today with over 200 years of investing our leaders in much the same way, with the new President repeating the words, flubbed a little this time around, enshrined in the Constitution by the Founding Fathers in 1788. Whenever I watch the orderliness and high ceremony of an inauguration I experience a rush of joy and thankfulness at being an American. In too many unhappy lands, transfer of power occurs by means of violence and bloodshed. Here, the only soldiers in the street are the bands playing Hail to the Chief and, unfortunately of late, the security people keeping us safe from terrorists. For all our faults, we are still the envy of the world, with a system so many wish they had at home.
President Obama takes office after a brilliant campaign, and one of the cleanest, most issue-oriented ones that I can remember. I did not support him, but I recognize that this is a watershed moment in our history. I'm old enough to remember the tail end of the struggle for civil rights, and to have heard poisoned talk of "shvartzes" by parents and others who should have known better. Who would have dreamed that a dark-skinned American, who only 50 years ago would not have been served at a lunch counter in parts of our country, would be elected President? What a road we have traveled. For me, the most memorable part of the campaign was when I ran in a black part of Brooklyn in my McCain shirt and hat, without incident save for a couple of girls doing a double take. 30 years ago that get-up would have gotten me jumped, but 30 years ago Barack Obama would not have been running for President. Not only did I not come to any harm, but a black resident of Crown Heights had his home all decked out with McCain signs and other Republican memorabilia, including a sign proclaiming that Martin Luther King was a Republican, as were most black Americans before the 1960s, if they were able to register to vote altogether. His house was not burned down, not even picketed. If we have indeed reached maturity as a nation, if race indeed no longer matters, then we should expect black folks to be on every side of every issue, just as white folks are, Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, Keynesians and free marketeers, and so forth.

We will be arguing again soon enough. Now is a time to set aside our differences, a time for joy, for good feeling, for gratitude, for pride in America. God bless the U.S.A.

Auguries

My readers know that I have deep misgivings about the results of the Presidential election. But so far, the auguries appear favorable. President-elect Obama appears to be surrounding himself with pragmatists rather than ideologues, much to the chagrin of his most ardent supporters on the left. A man who intends to surrender in Iraq would not be keeping George W. Bush's Secretary of Defense, and a man who hates Jews would not hire one (a moderately Orthodox one at that) as his White House chief of staff.
I do wonder about his choice for Secretary of State. Hillary Clinton is a smart woman, and she will not be the first female Secretary of State, not that I was very enthused with Madeleine Albright or Condoleeza Rice. Teddy Roosevelt said, "Speak softly and carry a big stick." If the lady at Foggy Bottom speaks softly and the man in the Pentagon carries a big stick, we will not be doing badly - if the lady can convince the bad guys that the man intends to use the big stick if he has to. I haven't forgotten Ms. Clinton's kissing up to Mrs. Yassir Arafat, literally. That was not stupid; it was evil. And it underscores the problem I have with Mr. Obama. Unlike great Presidents like Lincoln and Kennedy, and even not-so-great ones like George W. Bush, Obama is fuzzy about the difference between right and wrong. More about that in future posts. Right now I predict that we will have to watch the new President closely, and not be bashful about speaking out when he gets good and evil mixed up.

Gam Zu L'Tova

Our tradition teaches us to look for hidden good when seemingly bad things happen. And it's not too hard to see a silver lining in Barack Obama's victory last week. It might just be an end to the culture of victimhood that oppresses the African-American community and, to a lesser extent, our own. I see it every day as a teacher, the alienation and cynicism in my students, the mindset that holds them back from becoming what they could become. I tell my students on the first day of class that my course would be difficult but not impossible, and if they study and put in some effort they will succeed, that everything in life worth having comes from struggle. Once a student piped up that that's what white people say. That student had the guts to say what many many black students were thinking. Studying, speaking and writing proper English, attention to personal cleanliness and the like are "acting white." With that attitude how far can one expect to go? And then there's the N-word. I cringe whenever I hear it from a black student directed to himself or other black students. It is the ugliest word in the language. It is loaded to the gills with baggage, 100% negative. It is pure poison. A kid who thinks of himself as a n----r will never get anywhere. I can tell my students not to use that word till I'm blue in the face and I don't get anywhere because my skin is the wrong color. Well, come January 20 we will have a black President. He did not get to Columbia College, Harvard Law School or the White House by thinking of himself as a n----r. If he walks into a school and tells black kids from poor backgrounds to think and speak well of themselves and others, that he too comes from a broken home and that he got where he is as a result of hard work and study, and that they could do likewise and have a future of unlimited possibilities, maybe they will listen. And then our children will be closer to a world where the color of their skin is as inconsequential as that of their hair or eyes (gentlemen prefer blondes but end up marrying brunettes). And such a world will be that much closer to the ultimate ge'ula.
And what about us? After surviving the Holocaust and coming to America and Israel, few of our parents allowed themselves to wallow in victimhood, or to become parasites on the community and the larger society. They rebuilt their lives, married, had children and imbued them with a culture of opportunity: Study hard, get good grades, go to college, make something of yourselves and have everything we didn't have because we grew up in miserable lands of persecution. For some inexplicable reason, that mindset has largely broken down in the Orthodox community. Education is frowned upon, as is working for a living. Even speaking and writing fluent English someone makes you Grade B in sectors of our community. And breaking the law is okay if you profit from it and if you don't get caught. Maybe a minority President telling those people that neither he nor they are above the law, that the only route to success is education and hard work, it will carry some weight. And if it does, Obama's presidency will have done us a world of good.

Hat tip: Emet Ve'emuna

President-elect Obama

It ain’t over 'til it’s over, and it’s over. Barring a major misfortune or worse, Barack Obama will be our President on January 20. My readers know that I supported John McCain, and that the president-elect's epidermis had nothing to do with it. Mr. Obama's philosophy, his vision of America, is one that I do not share. John McCain's thinking was more in tune with my own. What now? Those who listened to McCain's concession speech heard a manly and gracious piece, worthy of the great American John McCain is. It ill becomes us to be churlish and mean-spirited, and to wish the President-elect anything but the best as he begins his monumental task. At 56 years of age, I have voted on the losing side of elections before. Mr. Obama's accession to the presidency will not be the end of the world, if. . . .

If he realizes that campaign oratory is one thing and governing the country is another. He might have run for office from the left (actually he more or less put together the coalition that Democrats since Franklin Delano Roosevelt put together in successful runs for President), but he will have to govern from the center or he will find himself without a good deal of the support and goodwill he enjoys today. And if he does govern from the center, we should have little to fear. As a biology teacher I can breathe a little easier, knowing that for at least four years we won't have to worry about pressure from the White House to teach anything but sound science in science class. Roe v. Wade will not be overturned anytime soon, and possibly not in my lifetime. That is a source of sadness; for me Roe v. Wade is this generation's Plessy v. Ferguson (the discredited "separate but equal" decision). But we are not Red China, and no woman will be forced to have an abortion under President Obama. He can be expected to pressure Israel to give away bits and pieces of God's patrimony, but so has every American president since the Six-Day War. We cannot realistically expect the President of the United States to be a disciple of Rav Zvi Yehuda Kook when a majority of Israelis and their government are quite willing to give away the store.

Many people are comparing the President-elect to President Kennedy, whose yahrzeit (on the civil calendar) is coming up in less than two weeks. He has JFK's youth and vigor, and his charisma. If he had JFK's steely moral clarity, I would probably have voted for him, but God made President Kennedy once and threw away the mold. JFK was not infected with the cancer of moral relativism, at least in his public life. There was a good and an evil. America was good, and its enemies (i.e. Communists and Communism) were evil, and his words and actions flowed from that clarity. In all probability, he would not be welcome in the Democratic Party today. He believed in "American exceptionalism," a doctrine familiar to Evangelical Protestants that holds that God gave America economic and military power beyond what any nation on earth ever dreamed of, and with it comes a sacred mission to confront evil and vanquish it. It was that calling that actuated FDR, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. It has even greater authority today, because the world is a smaller place and a tyrant anywhere, especially an Islamic fascist who thinks he has a sacred calling to spread his brand of tyranny around the globe, is a danger to free men everywhere. That philosophy failed to carry the day last week, and so I have a sense of deep foreboding. The new President, like the young and inexperienced John F. Kennedy 48 years ago, will be tested soon after taking office; even now the Russians are threatening him. If he orders a precipitous withdrawal from Iraq or otherwise projects an image of weakness, every terrorist on God's green earth will be emboldened to attack us. It will not be a question of whether there will be another 9/11 but when. Mr. Obama got elected in part because Americans forgot 9/11, or deliberately choose to pretend that 9/11 never happened and not have to deal with the logical consequences of our country having powerful enemies sworn to our destruction. How many Americans even know the difference between a "dirty bomb" and a "suitcase nuke?" The latter probably doesn't exist – yet. The former is well within reach of any amateur with access to radioactive material, perhaps waste from a hospital. We were told during the campaign to vote our hopes and not our fears, but a little fear can be a good thing. If, God forbid, our worst fears are realized, then I and those who think like me will, I hope without self-righteous gloating, fulfill our role of loyal opposition. Thankfully we live in a country where, if we think our government is doing the wrong thing, it is not only our right but our patriotic duty to speak out – if we are still alive, and that might well depend on which way the wind is blowing when the terrorists set off a dirty bomb in Manhattan.

We have a President-elect. He is entitled to the respect due his office (Ya'akov sat up in bed out of respect for the viceroy of Egypt – his own son) and to a chance to prove himself. We can hope and pray that he proves us wrong.