responses to my readers, including Locke and Greg

Here are some recent responses to my "Obama: The Audacity of Racism" piece. (the postings I am responding to are below what I am writing here). I promise that the next time I write it will be on another subject but want to pick up on some of this stuff.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Locke wrote:
Anonymous said...
C'mon, guys, Wright is a non-issue; if we were judged on our clergy's pronouncements, none should 'scape whipping.

The concerns, as I see them, fall into a number of categories:

(1) "Is a black man smart enough to run this country" -- is possibly an issue far in the babushka land (either meaning of the word 'babushka' being aceptable), but not in the real world where we have all had persons of color operate on us, fix our cars, get us out of jail, etc. Johnny Cochrane, Colin Powell and Condi Rice are the most conspicuous examples of African-Americans who are clearly more competent than most of their white competitors.

(2) "Is he going to bring back affirmative action with a vengeance" (or skew immigration policies in favor of persons of color, or otherwise out-Johnson Johnson and out-Carter Carter) -- is a valid concern but we are told by knowledgeable Illini that he showed no evidence of having ever moved in that direction.

(3) "Is he going to shake hands with Chavez and Nasralla and Ahmadinejad?" -- I hope he does, as he tells them with that winsome smile of his just how far up their butts he will shove the bull we have been putting up with all these years.

(4) "Is he going to wreck the economy?" -- sorry, can't do that any better than the current administration;

(5) "Is he going to allow our allies to fall?" (again, out-Johnson Johnson and out-Carter Carter) -- tough call, I'm willing to trust him so far.

I really think Obama will do well in our community, especially if he bothers to speak to us -- not that he will need our vote to swing the state, New York is his unless tsunami wipes out all but Adirondacks...

Locke
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Locke, our enlightened capitalist is much more reasoned in his posting. As Locke poins out, Obama is constrained in many ways in terms of the changes he can make--not the least by the Republicans stripping all the money in the Federal Treasury for taxc cuts for the rich and the War in Iraq, and he will probably end up disappointing those of us thirsty for fundamental change. I was glad to hear Locke's opinion that Obama could end up doing relatively well in the Russian community and will urge his people to make an effort at outreach. Certain, there seems to be a dividing line between generations here--in the Russian community as well as elsewhere, and on the issue of how 'Americanized' members of the community have become. But take it from Locke, friends, Obama in the White House is not going to unleash the barbarians at the gate into the cozy confines of Brighton.

Walter
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Greg said...
Walter, Hi from the Jewish Russian Telegraph (http://www.jrtelegraph.com).
Here is what I posted in response to your post:
Our friend Walter Ruby, of Ruby's Jewsday is writing about Obama, Israel and Russian Jews. Walter is our true friend, please be polite if you decide to comment on his post. This said his writing is very typical of an American Jewish liberal who approaches world conflicts as a fight between the boys in a seventh grade of a public school in a good neighborhood. You see, Palestinians and Israelis are having problems. Probably because they did not receive proper sensitivity training. Now, this is not good! They have to make up right away! American diplomats have to play a role of a wise teacher -- walking into a room, stopping a fight and making bad boys to behave. His friends, Russian Jews, are warm, intelligent people but they are SOO entrenched in their antiquated cold war attitudes. Definitely not nuanced and sophisticated. Walter, mon ami! chaver sheli! amigo! These people want us DEAD! Don't take our word for it -- just pay attention to what they are saying themselves.
Nobody is planning to leave you to visit Maale Adumim. As a matter of fact, nobody is planning to leave you alone in NYC either. American Jews are such nice people. If only they could grow up beyond middle school.
Best regards!

-- Greg
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Greetings to my friend Greg, the editor of the Jewish Russian Telegraph in Boston. I wrote a piece a couple of years ago tweaking the Boston Jewish establishment for ignoring the opinions of Russian Jews, including Greg and others involved in the Jewish Russian Telegraph. I have long tradition of criticizing the American Jewish establishment for imposing its writ and will on Russian Jews going back to the 1980's when the heads of American Jewish establishment groups used to decide policy on Soviet Jewry in consultation with Washington and Jerusalem (and sometimes after negotiations in the Kremlin) without consulting the brave refuseniks and Prisoners of Zion whose asses were literally on the line. That same kind of arrogance and paternalism by both the government of Israel and the American Jewish establishment continued after hundreds of thousands of Russian Jews emigrated here, and over a million to Israel and has had the unfortunate but predictable impact of confirming many Russian Jews in hard line positions vis a vis Israeli-Palestinian peace and on domestic issues in this country.

Greg, who is a mensch of a human being and puts out Jewish Russian Telegraph as a labor of love, takes the usual tact that us American Jews live in dreamland and dont understand that "These people want us dead." Who are 'these people" Greg? All Arabs? All Muslims? And how many Arabs and Muslims do you know well enough to have come to a sweeping conclusion like that?

Last month I spent a week in Jordan at an interfaith conference including some prominent American and Israeli rabbis, Not only did nobody try to kill us, but they wined and dined us at fancy clubs where wine was discreetly present. Also, they are signing on to a new Israeli-Jordanian-American plan to get hearing aids to poor Jordanian children whose parents would not otherwise be able to afford them. Jordaina-Israeli trade blossoms and grows despite a not very good political situation.

In my other kippah, as Muslim-Jewish Relations Program Officer for the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding (www.ffeu.org), I am involved in the implementation of a "Weekend of Twinning of Mosques and Synagogues Across America on November 21-23. The subject that will be discussed in as many as 50 mosques and 50 synagogues across the U.S. and Canada that day will be "Confronting Islamophobia and Anti-Semitism Together." And I can say that in over 100 phone and face to face conversations I have had with American imams and mosque leaders over the past month in planning this event, I have not had one person reject this idea and tell me that he wants to kill me or that the Jew is the eternal enemy and the Muslims should have no contact with us. Na'abarot, on the contrary, I have received a very warm reception and over 20 mosques have already signed on to participate (many others are in the process of signing on). Sure there are small groups of radicals out there, but the vast majority of American Muslims are anxious to join the mainstream of American society and they see that mainstream Jews can be allies in this regard.

Aha, I hear Greg snorting, that is because you American are such "useful idiots" in Lenin's term. We Russian Jews are so much more aware of how hard the real workd really is. Except, Greg, with due respect, I know many many more Arabs and Muslims than you do and maybe some of that experience has some relevance to the question as to who better understands the Arabs and Muslim, you or I. I would submit that the world of the Jewish Russian Telegraph is NOT the real world, but some cartoon variant thereof, a black and white pastiche of good guys and bad guys based on outdated perceptions formed in Soviet times that have little relationship to the real world of the 21st Century.

In the real world, you cant beat 1.2 billion Muslims into submission; you have to reach out to the moderates who reject the medieval visions of Bin-Laden and his ilk, and who dont want to live under the morals police of Al-Queda, Hamas or Hazbollah. Israel is belatedly waking up to the reality that trying to destroy Hamas by sealing off Gaza and punishing its people has had exactly the opposite impact, just as the American project of colonizing Iraq created aradical upsurge in that country and across the Islamic world. But I doubt Greg and the Jewish Russian Telegraph team has woken up to these realities yet. For them, there can only be one policy; silnaya ruka, force and more force. The policy posiitons he is proposing represent an absolute dead end for Israel and the Jews.

Best,

Walter



6:17 PM

Continued...

Obama and other matters

Friends,
Sorry over long silence after writing such an inflamatory piece last time. After that, I left for a fascinating interfaith conference in Amman, Jordan which I will write about tomorrow. But as to my last piece, I wrote it and felt it was an important and timely message for the Russian Jewish community to ponder, but am sorry in retrospect that I started with the anecdote about my friend, because she was deeply hurt by what I wrote. Making a political point doesn't feel worth screwing up a friendship of several years. I feel very sad about that.


But now that Obama has won the nomination and millions of Americans are feeling inspired by the possibility of transformative politics in America for the first time since 1968 (Talk about 40 years in the wilderness!), it really makes me sad to think of so many Russian Jews being fearful that Obama represents a grave threat to their security or to Israel's security. Nothing can be further from the truth, as should have been made clear by Obama's AIPAC speech, which to my mind went too far into pandering, as all candidates do every four years when trying to cater to the Jewish community and other powerful constituencies. The bottom line is that Obama is committed to Israel's security, but yes, he would likely pick up where Bill Clinton left off eight years ago and push and prod Israel and the Palestinians to reach a peace agreement(something Mc Cain would undoubtedly do as well). Why? Because the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict is bad for America, a spur to Islamic fundamentalism and therefore bad for Israel as well).


In the end, there is going to be a peace settlement in which Israel gives up most of the West Bank and allows some Palestinian sovereignity in East Jerusalem in exchange for a Palestinian committment to demilitarization and an ongoing international security presence in its territory. Israel will keep the larger settlements blocs like Ma'ale Adumim, Gush Etzion and perhaps Ariel and give up land adjoining the West Bank in return. The rest of the settlments will have to be evacuated. Everyone knows that will be the final settlement; the question is whether we move in that direction expeditiously or drag it out over another decade or two of violence, as Bush allowed to happen. Which is better for Israel and the Jews? The hard line perscription favored by many in the Russian Jewish community will only result in several generations more of violence and killing. It is easy to sit in NY and insist that Israelis should be uncompromising, because it is they and not us who will have to pay the price.

As to the domestic front, Obama will embark on an effort to return our politics to the work of tikkun olam (healing the world), by providing increased funding for the weakest in society (including elderly Russian Jews now barely surviving on small monthly SSI payments that dont even cover the cost of rent, let along incidentials like electrity, airconditioning and food). He will try to bring us something approaching universal health care and do something about the soaring cost of college, home foreclosures and rising interest rates. Mc Cain's perscription is the same as Republicans always give us--leave it to the magic of the market, the wonders of private enterprise--and everything will be fine and dandy. Right! That perfect perspcription must be why the economy is doing so well at the moment after 8 years of unregulated capitalism, with all protections for consumers and the environment stripped away. With all of his militaristic bravado and throwing alway hundreds of billions of dollars in the sands of Iraq, all Bush has accomplished is to spur Islamic fundamentalism, turn the U.S. into a debtor nation with a devalued currency that now has to kiss up to China, Saudi Arabia, Putin's Russia and other assorted petrorich thuggish states. But, hey, If you are happy with the state of America after eight years of Bush, if you think those policies really protect yourself and your loved ones, including aging parenets, then vote for another four years of the same. I doubt too many Russian Jews really feel that way.

So why are so many Russian Jews allergic to Obama? Because he feels to them as 'the Other'; a biracial guy with African roots, raised in Indonesia and Hawaii, exposed to Islam along the way...in other words, not a representative of the white-bread Reaganesque America they thought they were emigrating to (actually, that white bread America hasnt really existed since the 1950's, Reagan was an actor evoking mass nostalgia for an illusion). Obama is a 'world' candiate, evoking a 21st century reality of 'We are all in this together' and only the kind of compassionate inclusive politics he represents has a chance of salvaging America and the world, to take on the enormous challenge of global warming which is imperilling the very survival of our planet.

Do Russian Jews really want to go into the bunker with the likes of Rush Limbaugh and crazy, evolution-denying right wing evangelicals like Rev. Hagee who believe God commissioned Hitler to kill six million so that Jews would move to Israel? Mc Cain is not as bad as many Republicans, but the reality is that he is the captive of the right-wingers who dominate his party,and, if elected, would not be able to break with the main contours of their politics even if he wanted to. So his election would mean a locking in of Bush's tax cuts for the rich, which pushed this coubtry into debt and destroyed the ability of the government to raise the funds needed to help the struggling poor and middle class. That means more ultra-right Supreme Court justices, who will outlaw abortion, take away all consumer protections and protections for the rights of minorities, including immigrants.

Are there risks for the Jews in Obama's call to transform our society in a direction of social justice and more equal distribution of resources. Sure, change is always risky. Mistakes will be made along the way. But the alternative, four more years of catastrophic policies that have run this country into a ditch, is much, much riskier and much more dangerous for the Jews and for all of us. It is time for us as Jews to again join hands with our fellow Americans who are black, Hispanic, Asian and white to create an America and a world based on the values of cooperation and kindness rather than unbridled competition and definitely crouching in separate ethnic enclaves. And lets stop being so fearful of the idea of change. As Franklin Roosevelt said so many years ago, the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. Nu, davai, lets join forces with Americans of all backgrounds and contribute to building a healthier society, where people may have less material goods, but are compensated by a sense of common purpose.

Continued...