Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection to start the new year. A week or so after the new year.
What better way to get 2024 rolling than to have you, my beloved acolytes, rolling in the aisles with hilarious punch lines? I will share with you some Jewish jokes — brand new! written by yours truly! Or, if you hate them, written by Jo Koy.
Please note that if you are politically correct or take offense easily, these jokes are not for you. Then again, what jokes are?
Joke number one: Two Arabs are shopping for prayer rugs at a giant bazaar in Jerusalem. A little Jewish shop owner comes out and says, “Please! We have the best rugs! You must see!”
The Arabs are skeptical — what does this Jewish merchant know about prayer mats? — but they say, “Sure. What’ve you got?”
The salesman rolls out two small rugs and says, “My brother and I, we don’t sell any old schmattes like the others places. These are magical flying carpets.”
“Oh, come on,” the Arabs say.
“No, please! These were woven by the purest virgins and blessed by the highest Imams in all of Turkey and Iran. Sit!”
So the first Arab kneels on the carpet and waits. And waits. He says, “It’s nice, but it’s not flying.”
“Oh,” says the Jew. “That’s because you haven’t said the secret words. You have to think really hard of a phrase that has meaning to you. Whisper those words into the carpet. Then, when you’re ready, shout the phrase as loud as you can, and you will take flight!”
The Arab rolls his eyes. But then he shrugs, thinks a moment, leans forward, and whispers into the fringes of the rug.
“Get in position!,” calls the merchant. “And scream it out!”
The Arab takes hold and yells, “Free Palestine!” Suddenly, a big wind starts up, and the carpet rises off the ground, two feet, three feet, ten feet in the air. “This is incredible!” says the Arab. “Ahmed, you have to try it!”
His friend gets on the other carpet, whispers to it, then sits up and yells, “Death to Israel!” Another wind gust comes, and his carpet goes five feet, ten feet, fifteen feet high.
“How do I go up like him?” says the first Arab.
“You can both go much higher,” calls the Israeli. “You just have to close your eyes, concentrate, and keep shouting your secret words over and over.”
“Race you to the sky!” says Ahmed, as both Arabs close their eyes, think real hard, and start screaming, “Free Palestine!” “Death to Israel!” “Free Palestine!” “Death to Israel!” Both carpets go higher and higher: 30 feet, 50 feet, 70 feet off the ground.
The shop owner’s brother comes out from behind the counter and says, “Shmuley, should I do it now?”
“Nah,” says Shmuley. “Wait till they’re 100 feet up. Then turn off the blowers.”
Now, what do we learn from this joke? Well, first of all, if a person wants to believe something strongly enough, he or she or they will put aside rational judgment and go with it. This not only explains religion, and how we all worship to fairy stories written thousands of years ago, but it’s the reason we leave the house without an umbrella, even after the weatherman’s warned us: 60 percent chance of rain. We think: “It’s not gonna rain the ten minutes I’m outside.” It will, it does, you’re soaked.
Next joke: an Englishman, a Frenchman, and a Palestinian all die and find themselves at the gates of hell. The Englishman peeks in for a moment and says, “Well, it seems rather unpleasant, but so long as I can have my afternoon tea and spend the evening watching telly, I should get by all right.”
The Frenchman opens the gate of hell, wanders around a bit, then storms back, saying, “Mon dieu! Zis is an outrage! Ze heat, ze hard work! Soon as I can, I am starting ze labor union and everyone goes on strike!”
Finally, it’s the Palestinian’s turn. He takes a deep breath, throws open the gates, stomps in, and marches straight up to the devil. Then he says, “Honey, I’m home!”
This joke does not play well on college campuses, but then again, I do not play well on college campuses. They see me as a brutal colonizer, which is unfair. I’ve had many brutal colonics, but that’s not what they mean.
Anyway, these are difficult and ridiculous times for Jews everywhere. Our enemies surround us, sometimes they are us, and many are so naive they think they’re helping us by helping our enemies. As I said: ridiculous times. The best way to muddle through is to laugh — sometimes through gritted teeth.
Hey, how many Hamas militants can you stuff into an open grave?
I don’t know, but I sure hope we find out.
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.
RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #180 (12/31/2023): 2023 Farewell
airs Dec. 31, 2023 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip:
Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the end of the year, 2023.
What a joyful and encouraging year it’s been, hah? A terrific celebration of peace and love and reason and decency. And if you believe that, you must not have the internet. Or any access to the outside world, which has been steeped in anxiety and hatred — mostly, with good reason!
COVID is still here. Remember COVID? The virus that killed a zillion old people and is now a common cold? Only it’s so common, everyone’s still getting it! Almost four years after the disease erupted, many of us are still wearing masks everywhere. Granted, some people are such meeskeits a mask is an improvement—a public service even—but still! How many variants can one illness have? Someday, they’re gonna be able to trace all the way back, and they’ll learn that COVID is just another strain of Caveman Breathing Disorder.
And speaking of cavemen, Donald Trump is running for President again. Look, he wasn’t a bad POTUS; he was great for Israel and the economy. But he’s also old. And nuts. That’s a combination you put in Assisted Living, not the Oval Office. Meanwhile, Trump’s opponent is Joe Biden, who’s so old, when he got his driver’s license, he just had to learn two words: “giddyup” and “whoa.” I did not make that joke up, but I also couldn’t make up that the combined age of the two presumed 2024 candidates is 158. I know age brings wisdom and experience, but it also brings senility and special underpants. Ronald Reagan was a powerhouse in his first four years, but the last two he fumbled more than the New York Jets o-line.
Meanwhile, Trump might not even be allowed to run because State Supreme Courts, like the one in Colorado, are holding him accountable for the Capitol insurrection. He hasn’t been convicted of that, by the way. Oh, sure, he’ll get convicted of fraud and sexual harassment, but by gosh, the treason thing is still a mere accusation. As such, I think the Denver judges got ahead of themselves and hijacked an election decision that should be made by the voters, not the courts. Remember: the last time judges got involved in politics, they installed George W. Bush as commander in chief, which was like putting Rose from The Golden Girls in charge of NASA.
So if Trump doesn’t run or can’t run, we might get Ron DeSantis, who’s slightly to the right of Mussolini and thinks gay people should be, you know, ungay. Or there’s Nikki Haley, who, like DeSantis, is pro-Israel but also believes fetuses are viable at the sperm stage. So… as ever, our choice for the highest office in the land will come down to least worst. I’d rather have knoblewurst.
Meanwhile in 2023, the Dow Jones set new highs, but so did global temperatures, housing prices, gas prices, and groceries. By the end of the year, inflation improved, which is just a euphemism for prices still rising, only less quickly. And the national debt is now $33 trillion. I mean, can’t we just ask Taylor Swift, as a favor, to pay it off?
Nearing its second year is the Ukraine War, a fierce battle between Russia and…more Russians. Ukraine’s president keeps thanking us for all our money and weapons, but no: thank you, Vlodymyr Zelenskyy for keeping our military industrial complex chugging along. Maybe you can also beg for a bunch of Chevys and Toyotas and help us bring Detroit back. As for Russia-Russia, we all thought Vladimir Putin would be dead by now. Instead, he’s just deathly: pale and shaky with purple streaks on the tops of his hands. The CIA speculates those are either intravenous marks or he’s been fisting the California raisins.
Speaking of good taste, the Hollywood studios finally came to their senses and settled with the Writers Guild. They realized that having Artificial Intelligence write boring screenplays with lame dialogue, cliched plots, and obvious themes was no substitute for having real writers churn out scripts with lame dialogue, incoherent plots, and woke propaganda. The only movies that weren’t bombs were Oppenheimer, about a bomb, and Barbie, about a bombshell.
But, hey, where’s the A-bomb when you need it? On October 7th, Hamas fired hundreds of rockets from Gaza into mainland Israel. Arab gunmen also stormed an Israeli music festival where they massacred 300 attendees, tortured others, and took hostages. They also raped a bunch women, many of whom were later found dead. It’s unclear whether the women were violated before or after they were killed because, let’s face it, Muslim terrorists aren’t the pickiest bunch when it comes to pussy. They see a woman with an uncovered thumb, they’re like, “What a whore!”
When the first wave of horror was over, 1400 Israelis lay dead. I have no jokes for that: 1400 slaughtered in a day by the same batch of people who have poisoned the world for 70 years with their fundamentalism, despotism, and terrorism.
And so, a day later, Bibi Netanyahu says to the Palestinians in Gaza, “Pack your shit. Your have 24 hours. Get the fuck out.” And the world, which had spent 10 whole seconds commiserating with Israel in grief and mourning, said, “You can’t do that. You’ll cause a humanitarian crisis!” And Israel said, “Just maybe-perhaps-possibly Hamas should have thought of that before their ambush.”
Israel commenced revenge immediately, although Netanyahu did allow Palestinians more than a week to take their camel caravans and find another country to despoil. But was that enough for the UN? Was that sufficient for world opinion? Of course not! When an errant Arab bomb fell on a Gaza hospital, who got blamed? Who’dya think? Meanwhile, Hamas fighters are using hospitals and schools as their command posts. They know that if Israel attacks, liberals weep; and if Israel doesn’t attack, Jews die.Win-win. Well, you know what, OXFAM, and World Health, and Red Cross, and Doctors Without Brains? Sometimes Jews have to kill the people who make them die.
But do college kids understand that? These Ivy League-bush-league, moss-covered troglodytes who glom onto any cause as long as it makes them feel like they’re saving the world from their parents’ mistakes? While they live in their parents’ basements? Like toadstools blossoming out of excrement, pro-Palestinian protests are everywhere, stopping traffic, blocking libraries, frustrating commuters, and doing nothing except proving just how many anti-Semites there really are. “Oh, but we don’t hate Jews,” say Ilhan, and Rashida, and Alexandria, and Susan, and Roger, and, oh—in for a penny—Ice Cube and Kanye. “We just hate colonialist Israel”—forgetting that Hebrews have lived in Israel since forever, and that Jews ask for no other safe place in the universe apart from this tiny country.
In my stage show, Shalom, Dammit!, I made a joke about Jews for Jesus, saying that the term is an oxymoron, like Vegetarians for Brisket. Believe it or not, something even more incomprehensible has emerged: Queers For Palestine. I am not kidding: Queers For Palestine. These are a passel of LGB-D-Bags promoting the very people who would cut their schvantzes off for being who they are. You know, earlier this year, Out Traveler magazine picked the 15 best cities in the world for gay people. Coming in 8th, two slots ahead of Miami: Tel Aviv. You know how many other places in the Middle East made the list? (makes a zero with his fingers) If the list was the best 200, you know how many Middle Eastern cities would be on it? A handful—and they’d be in Israel, too.
And yet, Queers for Palestine. How can these foolish freaks have their heads so far up their own tucheses? Well, they’ve likely been trying that as a sex technique. But seriously, what’s next for them? Faggots for AIDS? In their case, I’d donate. And I wish AIDS, leprosy, and spina bifida on anyone who chants “From the River to the Sea: Palestine Will Be Free.” No way! “From the Sea to the River, IDF Will Make Hamas Quiver.” “From the Sand to Mud, Gaza Will Run with Terrorist Blood.” “From Jerusalem to Miami, We Will Slice our Enemies Like Pastrami.”
Okay. Enough rage. Now it’s time for sadness. As I often do with these annum-end reflections, I’d like to honor, poetically, some of the notables who did not make it out of 2023 alive.
We start with Norman Lear, of All in the Family and Maude.
And Richard Roundtree, who’s now giving the Shaft to God.
To Tina Turner we said goodbye
Her talent was river deep and mountain high
Farewell Tony Bennett, who left his heart in San Fran
and cartoonist Al Jaffee, who was a true Mad man
Ted Kaczynski died, and he was the bomb
Henry Kissinger gave us the director’s cut of Vietnam
As First Ladies go, Roz Carter seemed nice
And, sadly, Bob Barker has barked his last price
We lost Tim McCarver, so pleasant and plucky
and David McCallum, from UNCLE, our Ducky.
We lost Michael Gambon—Glenda Jackson, too
And Rolf Harris tied down his last kangaroo
Farewell Alan Arkin, of movies and theater
Bye Raquel Welch and Suzanne Somers — both jiggling for St. Peter
We toast Shane MacGowan with joy and affection
And director Bill Friedkin, who made a Connection
Jimmy Buffet’s margaritas became a huge trend
while booze and drugs took Matthew Perry, our Friend
We lost Pat Robertson, who thought he was holy
and Dame Edna tossed her last gladioli
Andre Braugher and Lance Reddick were marvelous cops
Richard Belzer was dean of the microphone drops
Farewell to Jeff Beck. Bye bye Tom Verlaine
No more will Burt Bacharach write about rain
The princely Treat Williams is now in an urn
Farewell Cindy Williams, who’s up with Laverne
Sandra Day O’Connor has judged her last case
While Sinead O’Connor has reached a better place
We lost Adam Rich of “Eight is Enough”
and Marty Krofft, panjandrum of “H.R. Puffnstuff”
Gordon Lightfoot made his way down with the sun
and farewell to Tom Jones — no, the off-Broadway one
Bon voyage Belafonte, a King among men
And ciao, David Crosby, the C of SN.
Robbie Robertson’s up with the Hawks in a Band
And let’s all give Pee Wee Herman a hand
We mourn Jerry Springer who sent chairs flying
And all the good people who are sick, dead, or dying.
But enough lamentation! I don’t want to bore
Let’s pray for survival in 2024.
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York. Happy Jew Year.
click above to watch the episodeclick above to listen to the episode (audio only)
Here is the 808th episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired live on Facebook, Saturday morning, July 24, 2021. Info: Davesgoneby.com.
Guests: actresses Lillias White and Vicki Quade; theater critics Leslie (Hoban) Blake & David Sheward.
Featuring: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews actress Lillias White; Rabbi Sol’s Rabbinical Reflection (Ben & Jerry’s); Colorado Limerick of the Damned (Hoehne); Greeley Crimes & Old Times
00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN w/ Joyce (hotspot) 00:30:30 TODAY/YESTERDAY Trivia Quiz (July 24 w/ David Sheward, Leslie (Hoban) Blake, Vicki Quade) 01:50:00 GREELEY CRIMES & OLD TIMES 02:17:00 GUEST: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews Lillias White 02:51:30 Friends of the Daverhood 03:00:00 RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #170 (Ben & Jerry’s) 03:08:30 COLORADO LIMERICK OF THE DAMNED (Hoehne) 03:11:00 DAVE GOES OUT
click above to watch the episode.click above to listen (audio only)
Here is the 758th episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired live on Facebook, Saturday morning, Aug. 8, 2020. Info: Davesgoneby.com.
Featuring: Dave chats with his cousins, Jeffrey Kirsch & Cynthia Shub Kirsch; Greeley Crimes & Old Times; Rabbi Sol Reads the Papers; Colorado Limerick of the Damned (Dinosaur); Wretched Pun of Destiny (Arab); Today/Yesterday (Aug. 8); Inside Broadway.
00:01:00 DAVE GOES IN w/ Joyce (Isaias, Covid, Eric for Ellen?, Rolling Stones, Ren & Stimpy, the ants’ revenge, toothbrush time) 01:07:00 GREELEY CRIMES & OLD TIMES 01:28:30 GUESTS: Jeffrey Kirsch & Cynthia Kirsch Shub 02:07:00 TODAY/YESTERDAY (Aug. 8) 02:42:00 RABBI SOL READS THE PAPERS 02:59:30 INSIDE BROADWAY 03:16:00 WRETCHED PUN OF DESTINY #79 (Arab) 03:19:00 Friends of the Daverhood 03:26:30 COLORADO LIMERICK OF THE DAMNED (Dinosaur) 03:29:00 DAVE GOES OUT
Aug. 1, 2020 Playlist: “Over the Rainbow, Version 2” (Shooby Taylor).
Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of January 11, 2015.
Where’s the King of Cartoons when you need him? Remember him, from the Pee-Wee Herman show? He was a big old schvartze with a super 8 projector, and he’d show nostalgic animations to the kiddies at home. It wasn’t exactly “South Park,” but at least, the cartoons had a big brother, an overseer, someone who would, presumably, also protect harmless, defenseless cartoonists.
Protect them from what? What else? Muslims. Crazy-ass, psychopathic, radical Muslims. Muslims who stormed into the offices of a satirical newspaper in Paris and methodically killed a dozen people, wounded a dozen others, and got away in their black Mohammed mobile while shouting “Allahu Akhbar,” which, of course means, “whose turn is it to pay for White Castle?”
Seriously, though, I am getting so tired of hearing, “Oh, it’s just a small faction. You can’t fault the whole religion. A zillion people follow Islam all over the globe, and they’ve never killed anyone . . . Yet.” Sure, that’s true. But why is it every time you turn on the news, and some lunatic causes mayhem and chaos, 99 times out of 103, it’s a douchebag in a black hood shouting how much he loves him some Allah?
And God forbid we should say there’s a pattern. God forbid we should profile towelheads at the airport. No, better we should blame the cartoonists for riling up our enemies with naughty pictures. You know, if I tracked down and shot every schmuck who made an anti-Semitic comment on youtube or Huffpo, I’d be a killing machine to rival Chuck Norris. I’d have to hire my accountant, Morty Birnbaum, just to keep a ledger of all the worthless bastards I’d executed. I’d walk through every school in the middle east with bandoleers criss-crossed over my chest like Pancho Villawitz. And I’d put a bullet through the head of every man, woman and child who ever said a word against me, Israel, or “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” I’d leave so many bodies lying around, the 2004 Indonesian tsunami would look at me and go, “Dude, I’m not worthy.”
Homicidal fantasies aside, I do not do these things. I dream about them. I rant about them. But I do not do them. Why? Because I’m a coward. And also a human being. Occasionally. I know there’s a difference between right and wrong, and that committing mass murder to prove how religious you are is like drinking three sixpacks to prove you’re not an alcoholic. But someone in Arabia didn’t get the memo. And he certainly didn’t forward it to his gun-toting, Koran-spewing buddies.
If I sound like a broken record, it’s because I’m a broken-hearted record. Every couple of weeks I have to do one of these Rabbinical Reflections, not about a Jewish holiday, not about social causes, but always about Arabs with a mental defect and a death wish. But when I call a spade a spade, I’m a racist, I’m part of the problem, I’m promoting the crypto-zionist western-fascist Jew-owned police state that’s oppressing the poor little Bedouins and their cutesy-wutesy oil wells. Well, shtup that and shtup them.
As of this writing, one of the terrorists has given himself up, and authorities are on the trail of two French-born, Islamic brothers who helped pull off the bloodbath. May all three be caught, strapped to an easel and stabbed in the throat with a sharpened Faber Castell polychromos yellow. And, at the moment of their deaths, may the King of Cartoons draw a thought bubble, in permanent marker, next to their heads, with the words inside reading, “Suck it, Allah. Mohammed’s a joke!” Or whatever the Arabic version of that might be.
Then, may his highness, the King of Cartoons erase these three Islamic smudges from the book of life, and may God create another tsunami, this one in the middle east, wiping out every terrorist and enabling Muslim caliphate, leaving just Israel intact, surrounded by millions of miles of pure, pristine sand. “Well,” God will say to the King of Cartoons, “back to the drawing board.”
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.
Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of November 23, 2014.
And here I was, all set to do a gentle sermon about Thanksgiving. How grateful we should all be for friends and co-workers and family — well, maybe not family — but for all the loving, helpful people in our lives. How we must be thankful to HaShem if we still have good health, functioning limbs, working brain cells, food on the table, a roof overhead — preferably one with a fiddler on it — a decent job, a couple of hobbies, a warm winter coat and a not-bad summer vacation.
Saying grace after every meal has never been my thing. What, I should sit there thanking God for his bounties, and by the time I’m finished, the food gets cold? No wonder goyim are so skinny; by the time they finish praying, their entrees are back in the microwave. Nevertheless, a couple of times a year, it’s good to remember that everything comes to us by the courtesy of God above and the hard work of our peers and forebears.
How lovely to offer a Rabbinical Reflection on such a spiritual and fraternal topic. However, the news this week forbids me from doing such a gentle, joyful sermon. I am, once again, detoured from being my usual snuggly marshmallow of delight into sounding like a vindictive, vituperative expounder of hate and revenge. Last Tuesday, two Palestinians armed with guns and meat cleavers burst into a Jerusalem synagogue and began firing and chopping. They murdered five people, including a policeman, three American Rabbis and an Orthodox Jewish Brit. For their troubles, the assassins, Ghassan Abu Jamal and his cousin, Oday Abu Jamal, were sent to martyrdom and their 72 ugly-ass virgins in the sky.
As an extra-punitive measure, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu then ordered that the killers’ houses be demolished. Honestly, I don’t know how upsetting that is to a dead terrorist. What’s he gonna say? “Aww, I was gonna make hummus tonight. No wait, I’m being shoveled into an unmarked grave. Gee, I’m gonna miss the sun room.”
Still, hurrah for any action by the Israeli government that warns Arabs we will not stand for such horrors as violence, murder and television programs featuring Jane Velez Mitchell. Let there be no doubt: bloodthirsty Palestinians may not storm into a temple in Yerushalayim and start executing people. Not unless it’s the high holy days and they bought a ticket.
Seriously, do you know why these terrorists embarked upon their rampage? Was it eye-for-an-eye revenge? Were they mad about Jews who went on a killing spree in the local Falafel Mart? No, because that didn’t happen. The Palestinians were irate because Jews have been visiting a holy site on the Temple Mount that the Arabs think should be off-limits to Hebrews. Doesn’t matter that Arabs in East Jerusalem can go anywhere they damn well please; Jews are forbidden from going where the Arabs don’t want them. Apparently, the penalty for trespassing in the Arab world is being hacked to death. Which makes sense, since the penalty for stealing is cutting off a hand, and the penalty for adultery is, well, let’s just call it extreme circumcision and leave it at that.
Following the synagogue attack, lame-duck President Obama is calling for peace and restraint on both sides, downplaying the savagery of the event and, as usual, doing nothing. Hey Barry! We had three Americans murdered by agents of a foreign regime. Isn’t that like, war, or something? I know the dead Rabbis weren’t black, but you could at least raise an eyebrow.
In the weeks ahead, you can bet your burqa Israel will do a lot more than snivel and call for moderation. There’ll be raids, roundups, demolitions and, alas, probably some vigilantism, too. I won’t deny that there’s a back-and-forth, you-did-this-so-I-do-that element to Israeli/Arab conflagrations. Remember last time? They killed those hitchhikers, so some misguided, hyped-up Israelis murdered some soccer-playing kids. Much as I hate the radical Arabs, killing innocent people is never an answer to anything. In fact, that’s what got us here. If the Palestinians would stop being terrorists, we’d stop being enemies. And if we stop being enemies, they can visit our synagogues, and we can be tourists at their shrines. And we’ll talk, and we’ll laugh, and we’ll bitch about the government, and we’ll share music and art and sports and do business deals, and food! We’ll sit down together with pastrami and goat and borscht and eggplant and kugel and yogurt, and we’ll watch TV, and we’ll fall asleep, and you know what we’ll call it? Thanksgiving.
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.
RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #104 (8/3/2014): Great Guns in Gaza
aired Aug. 2, 2014 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://youtu.be/aNHPRoAQWFc
Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of August 3rd, 2014.
If you play with fire, you’re gonna get burned. If you keep throwing gasoline on that fire, you’re gonna get burned blacker than the New York Knicks in a lunar eclipse. Or, put another way, if you beat up your wife ten times, each time she will forgive you, she’ll wear a band-aid and concealer, and she’ll live in fear until the next flare up. But on the eleventh time, if you haven’t killed her yet, she’s gonna call a friend of a friend named Nunzio, and, for a fee, he will relocate you – to the middle of the East River.
It’s the law of “enough is enough.” If you are the nation of Israel, and surrounding your borders are a people who have sworn to drive you into the sea . . . These people fire rockets, indiscriminately and daily, into your heimat. If you’re Israel, you tolerate a dozen rockets, a hundred rockets, a thousand fakakteh rockets that usually land in the middle of nowhere, thank God. But rocket number 1,001? It’s time to pull your Incredible Hulk costume out of the closet and kick some ass.
Three weeks ago, as I’m sure you recall, three innocent Jewish teenagers were slaughtered when they hitchhiked a little too far into Gaza. This was not just another act of violence – you know, like Saturday night in Chicago – this was a flashpoint. It was the moment the Israeli government could say, “You know what? We give the Palestinians the Gaza Strip in exchange for peace, and they give us our teenagers back in pieces. Enough with their rockets, enough with the terrorism, enough with the bullshit about Hamas being a legitimate political organization; it’s time to open up a can of whoop-tuchas on this enemy that means us only harm and destruction. Bring it.”
In my previous Rabbinical Reflection, which I’m sure you’ve nearly memorized and put on flash cards for easy reference, I urged the IDF to take action in Gaza. To avenge the death of those boys and give the camel jockeys payback for years of tears, fears and jeering Emirs. I am thrilled, therefore, that Benjamin Netanyahu gathered up his army into a white-and-blue fist, and they’ve been pounding the Gaza goons ever since.
Dead civilians? Unfortunate casualties? For sure, and what a shame. It’s called collateral damage, and every war has `em. And the Arab teenager that Israeli extremists abducted and killed in retaliation? No one’s proud of that. I’ll even go as far as saying that Israel hasn’t gone out of its way every single time to make sure they’re only blowing up militants and not bystanders two feet away from militants. But when did the Arabs ever make a distinction between soldiers and regular folk? Bombs on buses? Shrapnel in cafes? Mass murders of Olympic athletes and commercial airplanes slamming into the tallest buildings in New York? It’s a good thing I’m not an army General, because I’d napalm every speck of Gaza with a tent on it.
And where does American stand in all this? It’s honestly hard to tell. Barack Obama and John Kerry are talking the left-wing, liberal talk of “stop the fighting now, it’s a humanitarian crises, Israel and Hamas need to cease fire immediately and sit down at the table because there’s wrongs on both sides” – all the typical crybaby blah-blah that negates the basic fact that Israel tends to be in the right 90 percent of the time.
However, words and actions are entirely different things, especially in diplomacy. And for all the handwringing blather as a sop to the “Democracy Now” crowd, the Obama administration has, until this point, watched from the sidelines and let Israel do what it has to do. Thank you, Mr. President. If our Secretary of State wants to appease the Muslims by making noises about how Israel is being too harsh and causing too much suffering to the poor, innocent Palestinians, no problem. Just give Yisroel time to collapse the tunnels, kill the killers and drag Hamas, begging and desperate, to the outhouse of surrender. By eliminating terrorists and religious fanatics, Israel is doing America favor after favor, and I honestly believe Obama and company realize that – no matter how many times Republican bloggers call him “Hussein” and make him sound like the love child of Josef Stalin and Ayatollah Khomeini.
It’s the nature of Israel that whenever we do strike back against those who oppress us, we have to apologize for killing more of them than they of us. When our missiles hit their targets, when 100 Palestinians die for every Israeli soldier, that’s unseemly somehow. It should be more balanced. We should die more just to ratchet up the sympathy vote. Sorry, Charlie. The goal is to weaken Hamas and make Israel safe from attack. If that means bombing Gaza back to the stone age, so be it. Besides, Arab children have proven quite skillful at throwing stones, so it’s right up their alley. Just don’t expect to throw stones at Jews anymore, because we will fire them right back at a hundred times the speed.
Go Israel! Go Bibi! And remember what Abba Eban said, “It is better to be disliked than pitied.” I’m both, but I’m beyond giving a crap.
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.
RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #100 (5/18/2014): Boko Haram
aired May 17, 2014 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vy1Wthfvjvo&feature=youtu.be
Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of May 18th, 2014.
Well, the Muslims are at it again. And this time they’re not in Syria, or Pakistan or Saudi Arabia, or any of those other countries where oil wells turned the third world into the first world without giving a second thought to the first amendment. No, today’s Mohammedian mess comes from Nigeria, of all places.
The Islamic militant organization Boko Haram, which I believe is the African word for “Procol Harum,” has spent its quality time causing terrorism and assassinations to the tune of 10,000 dead in the region over the last decade. Nobody every heard of them until now because, well, let’s face it, a bunch of African schvartzes? We have our own problems. But now they’ve gone too far: they’ve kidnapped a bunch of nubile young girls. It’s kind of like when the New York Post has a headline that someone stabbed a co-ed. You could rape a dozen fat, immigrant, Eskimo women, and you won’t even get a line in the Weird but True column. But you knife a cute co-ed, the Post has cover coverage for a week.
So now Boko Haram, this cancerous collective of terror cells – which is what cancer is, come to think of it – Boko Haram has leapt into New York Post nirvana by attacking an all-girls school and kidnapping more than 200 female students. And just to show that it isn’t personal, just business, they’ve threatened to sell the girls into slavery. I know – it’s horrible, it’s inhumane, and let me tell you, with Merry Maids charging a hundred bucks a week, I’m tempted.
But seriously, what a shock that the religion of peace would turn out to be the religion of 200 pieces of Nigerian ass. Governments around the world are working to coax the kidnappers into behaving decently, which is kind of like asking a gorilla to stop throwing banana crap. In response, Boko Haram said, “Sure, we’ll release the young ladies – in a trade for all of our terrorists that you have locked up.” Sound familiar? Ask Israel how many murderers it had to exchange just bring a few soldiers home.
Wisely, the Nigerian government has rejected the “teens-for-terrorists” swap meet, though they are open to broad negotiations – they just won’t negotiate for the broads. Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan – and I’m not making that up, the guy sounds like he should have a second-act number in “Guys and Dolls” – Goodluck Jonathan is meeting with other world leaders to discuss ways to put the loco Bokos in their place. Hopefully, that won’t include meeting their demands, appeasing them or treating them like people.
Oh, and big thumbs up to the vigilantes who rose up against these Islamic Fundamurderers last week and started taking back their village. I’m sure they said to themselves, “Hey, the government won’t do it, and the U.N. won’t do it, so let’s grab some torches and pitchforks and look for Imams.”
Of course, I have a much better and safer way of getting revenge on the Nigerians. We send them all an email, and the email says, “Congratulations! You have won $5,000,000 which is being held for you in trust by my uncle, the King of Nebraska. In order to claim your lotto earnings, just send us a bank transfer for $8,000 along with three dozen Nigerian teenage nymphettes, and you’ll get your check in the mail faster than you can say (click language). PS: If you find Casey Kasem, we’ll throw in a toaster. Sincerely, Prince Chaim, Omaha.”
I know, it’s a cruel trick. But payback’s a bitch. So come on, Boko Haram, release the bitches.
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.
RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #75 (9/1/2013): Egypt Again
Aired August 31, 2013 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://youtu.be/6jZy0FXcg1E
Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of September 1st, 2013.
Oy, Egypt, Egypt, Egypt. Doesn’t it figure that the one country in the Arab world that seemed stable, the one place that wasn’t a scary mess of Islamic Jihad and anti-West anti-Semitism, Egypt, would collapse into chaos?
Forty years ago, Anwar Sadat made a brilliantly savvy political move – albeit a lousy personal one since it got him shot – but for the good of Egypt, he signed a peace treaty with Israel. And against all odds, it lasted! It was real. There was peace, there was economic and cultural exchange, there was falafel everywhere. Israel had a million things to worry about in the Middle East, but Egypt, which had been our worst military enemy, wasn’t one of them.
And Egypt took a Western approach to its politics. So Western, that they ended up copying our own runaway corruption. Hasni Mubarak, who succeeded Anwar Sadat – about the only thing he succeeded in – ran the country for 30 years until being deposed by the military. And then, for his replacement, they hold democratic elections. Great, right?
Not so great; the winner is Mohamed Morsi, of the Muslim Brotherhood. Which is basically Al Qaeda Lite. Young Egyptians hate this, because with radical Muslims in charge, Egypt is destined to slide into the same soul-crushing totalitarianism that made Afghanistan and Iran such glorious vacation hotspots. So what happens? There’s an uprising, the people protest and riot, and the Egyptian military pulls Morsi out of office and takes over.
This does not sit well with the Muslim Brotherhood, so they show their brotherly love by rioting, pillaging and forcing the army to crack down and make a police state. Meanwhile, the military are busy trying to drum up some kind of revised constitution and figuring out how to hold elections before the whole country implodes. In Egypt, every day is like the night the Steelers win the Super Bowl; if you weren’t in the car when they were overturning it and setting it on fire, you’re ahead of the game.
Now, the Egypt situation is more complicated than others in the Middle East because they were getting along with America and Israel. Mubarak was no great shakes as a leader, but he held to the treaties and kept things on an even keel. I’ve been on an uneven keel, and let me tell you, I got so nauseous, I almost keeled over. Of course, in those situations, it’s keel or be keeled, but I digress.
Egypt holds free and democratic elections, and the last guy in the world America wants in there wins. So, we’re happy when the army discards him, but at the same time, what kind of democracy is it when the people elect a leader, and a year later, the army says, “Ehhhh, Do over, do over!”
I mean, imagine if in this country, we have an election, the popular vote goes to one candidate, but there are problems and miscounts and shenanigans, so the Supreme Court takes over and appoints the president based on the judges’ political leanings rather than the actual voting. Thank God, something like that could never happen here.
So both America and Israel are mired in wait-and-see limbo when it comes to Egypt. If we support the army, that means we rejected the election process. If we support the Morsi Muslims, well, we might as well just send over pilot-training manuals so they can get started on the next 9/11. We’re shtupped either way.
Whatever happened to the good old days when the CIA would muscle into a country, assassinate the dictator, and prop up some crooked but pro-Western puppet with billions of our tax dollars? What’s the point of being a Superpower if you can’t be superpowerful? We used to look out for number one. Now all these countries submerge us in number two.
That said, I do really wish the Egyptians well, and I hope – against all hope – that they can somehow form a coalition government. One that puts modernized moderates in charge but allows right-wingers a voice and the freedom to worship as they please – which, since it’s the exact opposite of what they allow, will cause their heads to explode. Hey, a guy can dream.
Until then, we would do best to recall that twice the Egyptians have done the impossible: they built the pyramids, and they stunned the rest of the Arab world by making nice-nice with Israel. So is it too much to ask for another miracle? Oh wait, I’m still hoping for that one about the Jets winning another Super Bowl. Quel dommage.
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.
Here is the 420th episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired on UNC Radio, April 20, 2013. Info: davesgoneby.com.
Featuring: Rabbi Sol Solomon chats with actor Charles Grodin. Plus: Inside Broadway, Saturday Segue (Boston bands), Bob Dylan – Sooner & Later (420), and Rabbi Sol on the Boston marracre.
Host: Dave Lefkowitz
Guest: actor Charles Grodin
00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN 00:12:00 SATURDAY SEGUE – Boston bands 00:49:30 DAVE GOES OFF – Boston Marathon Massacre 01:13:00 GUEST: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews Charles Grodin 02:16:00 BOB DYLAN – Sooner & Later (420) 02:49:00 Sponsors 02:52:00 Friends 02:56:00 RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #064 – The Brothers Tsarnaev and the “M” Word 03:01:30 Weather 03:03:30 INSIDE BROADWAY (news: 03:03:30 / review: 03:19:00, A Year with Frog & Toad) 03:24:00 DAVE GOES OUT
April 20, 2013 Playlist: “Winterlong” (00:13:00; The Pixies). “Decomposing Trees” (00:16:00; Galaxie 500). “All Mixed Up” (00:20:00; The Cars). “Invisible Man” (00:24:00; The Breeders). “Rip in Heaven” (00:27:00; `til Tuesday). “Fast Man” (00:30:30; Frank Black). “I Can’t Find My Best Friend” (00:34:30; Jonathan Richman). “You’ve Got a Friend” ({live} 00:37:00; James Taylor). “How to Say Goodbye” (00:42:30; The Magnetic Fields). “Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum” (02:18:00), “Trying to Get to Heaven” (02:23:00), “Man Gave Names to All the Animals” (02:28:00), “Tangled Up in Blue” ({live} 02:32:30), “Every Grain of Sand” ({acoustic} 02:37:00) & “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35” (02:41:00; Bob Dylan). “It’s Spring” (A Year with Frog and Toad; original cast).
Charles GrodinThe Boston MarathonThe Boston Bombers
