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Rabbi Sol Solomon offers a special edition of the News Gone By segment — news of the week from his uniquely Jewish perspective.

Segment originally aired Nov. 24, 2002, as part of the “Dave’s Gone By” radio program hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.

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RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S APOCRYPHA #4: News for Jews

(c)2002 David Lefkowitz & Rabbi Sol Solomon 

NOTE: In the early days of the radio program, “Dave’s Gone By,” host Dave Lefkowitz wrote and emceed a weekly segment called the “News Gone By.” It was a “Weekend Update”-style, comical riff on the week’s current events. For his eighth episode, which aired Nov. 24, 2002 during the Chanukah holiday, Dave invited Rabbi Sol to take over the whole program, including the “News Gone By,” which Sol reworked into “News for Jews.” Here’s the transcript: 

Welcome back to the show, November 24, 2002. This is the News for Jews—current events from around the world from a Rabbinical pinnacle.

Our top story: What else could it be? Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria—the Muslims are going nuts! What the hell is wrong with these people?

The hummus really hit the fan on Thursday when a Palestinian militant killed 11 people and injured 49 others when he blew himself up on a crowded Jerusalem bus. It was morning rush hour. The bus was filled with commuters and schoolkids. Witnesses said they heard children screaming, “Mama! Mama!”, from the wreckage.

Reuters reported that the militant group Hamas—of course—took credit for the carnage. Speculation is they’re stepping up terror attacks to make Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his hard-line policies look bad before the general elections happening January 28th.  Running against Sharon’s Likud Party is Amram Mitzna, the Mayor of Haifa, heading the Labor Party. 

Now, Labor almost chose former Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, but he was seen as being too pro-Sharon, too hard-line, and Labor wanted to be more left-wing. So, the elections will be a real referendum on whether the people of Israel believe Sharon should stay the course or if they should just throw up a white flag and withdraw unilaterally from the “occupied” territories.

It’s assumed that giving back all the land will finally bring peace to the region. As if. Let me tell you something. There was terrorism before 1967, and there will be terrorism after 2002. But if they want to try something else, if they want to give the Arabs a chance, here is my suggestion: 

Go. Give back the land. All the occupied territories, Gaza, the whole shmear. It’s all sand and camel piss anyway. That’s all the bastards have done with it for 35 years. So let them have it. Everything except East Jerusalem, for now. Make the borders secure, and see if these so-called peace-loving Islamics can govern themselves. If the terrorism stops, if the Jews stop dying, mazel tov! We’ll all dance around, we’ll shake hands, and in ten years, we’ll talk about giving up East Jerusalem. However, if there’s any terrorism, or military action against Israel, Israel reserves the right to strike back. But not just the way they’ve been doing, but in a punitive way. A way that would shock even the most militant Al Qaeda operative. 

They want Hebron? Give them Hebron. But if some burqa-wearing bitch gets on a bus in Tel Aviv and blows it up, we don’t just isolate Yasser Arafat in his office building and keep him there; we blow up the office building with him in it! And the building next to it. And the building next to that. And the building behind it. And the building down the block.

And if they still don’t get the message? If they have their land back, yet still there’s more terrorism, a few airplanes strafing Arab markets with machine-gun fire should get the point across. When 150, 200 Arabs die for every Israeli being killed, maybe then they’ll think twice about martyrdom. And every time there’s a terrorist attack resulting in loss of life or limb, that pushes back the time table for getting back East Jerusalem another two years. So, if there are six terrorist attacks in a given years, that’s a dozen extra years before we even hit the negotiating table.  

That is my offer; take it or leave it. Call it tough love. Call it tough hate. But these people are out of control. Look what happened in Nigeria. A beauty pageant. A stupid beauty pageant caused four days of rioting and left more than 200 people dead. Why? Because the devout Muslims read in the newspaper a reporter defending the pageant saying that if Muhammad were around, quote, “He would probably have chosen a wife from one of the contestants.” That’s it. For this, scores of Muslim youth finished their prayers on Friday, then they went around setting cars on fire and stoning and beating the crap out of Christians. To be fair, it should be noted that Christian vigilante groups started running around counter-attacking Muslims. Pretty soon, churches and mosques were burning all over the northern city of Kaduna and the capital city, Abuja. 

According to Newsday, Nigerian officials initially saw the pageant as a source of good PR for the country, a way of attracting tourists. After all, Abuja is the Baltimore of the Middle East. But the whole thing backfired so much, officials are moving the beauty contest to London, where the Muslims are too busy selling fast-food curry to do any real damage. Well, except to people’s colons.

But let’s be clear about this: Nigeria has 120 million people in it. (Well, minus 200.) And it’s not as if they’re all Muslim. It’s about half-and-half Muslim and Christian. So Christians have just as much right to look at boobs as Muslims have to look away. If you log on to the official Miss World website, www.missworld.org, not only do you get to read a letter by the Nigerian minister of foreign affairs, where he condemns stoning, but you can see and vote on who you want to be Miss World. 

Now, let me tell you something: there are some hot women here, of all races, creeds, and colors. For example, get a load of the melons on Miss Bosnia-Herzegovina! Not only would Muhammad have married her, he’d have done a threesome with her and Miss Holland! He would have gotten Jesus on the phone and said, “Look, Magdalene’s cute. But you gotta check out Miss Algeria. Her hobbies are reading books, volleyball, basketball, and swallowing.”

But, no. The Muslims can’t let anybody live and let live. They just caught the guy who masterminded that nightclub bombing in Bali that killed 200 people. He’s an Indonesian who trained with militants in Afghanistan, and he has ties to Southeast Asia. Meanwhile, President Bush keeps pressuring Iraq to confess whether it has any biological or chemical weapons. If Iraq swears that it has no weapons, America will attack because they’re obviously lying. If Iraq does admit to an illegal arsenal, America will attack, because they’re dangerous weapons in dangerous hands. If Iraq allows UN weapon inspectors to tour its facilities, America will attack because they’re not showing all the really secret hiding places. 

No, of course it’s not fair. But considering what’s going on, I really do think it’s time for militant fanatical Moslems all over the world to be disarmed. I don’t mean taking away their weapons; I mean cutting their arms off! This is not so much punitive as practical. They’d spend so much time between prayer sessions trying to get their shoes back on, they wouldn’t have time for any hanky-panky. Speaking of hanky-panky: Miss Israel, you have my number. If my wife picks up, tell her you’re Mrs. Elfenbein from the Couples Club and you’ll reach me at the office.

But seriously, if you think I’m a dirty old man, how about these people in the news? First, you had the counselor convicted of sexual abuse at the Harlem Boys Choir. Then, Jeffrey Jones, the guy who played the Dean in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, has been charged with possessing child pornography and taking nudie pictures of a 14-year-old boy. And in the same sting operation, worst of all, a Jew, Paul Reubens—yes, Pee-wee Herman, was arrested for possessing kiddie porn. All three men are in their fifties, and they’re all facing jail time for their jailbait time. I do feel a little sorry for Paul Reubens—real name, Paul Rubenfeld. First, years ago, he was arrested in public in a dirty movie theater for doing what people do in a dirty movie theater. Now, they’ve arrested him for looking at pornography in his own home. I think the next step is the FBI will wire his brain so that every time he even thinks about dirtiness, the police will show up at his door with handcuffs and a warrant. You can just see that: Pee-wee is at home, he’s planning his next career move (whatever that is): “Hmmm, let’s see. I had some momentum going there playing the drug dealer in that Johnny Depp movie. Maybe if my agent can land me a guest shot on The Sopranos, maybe a pilot on Comedy Central for this new character I’m working on… All right, if worse comes to worst, I could play that weirdo again on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Sarah Michelle Gellar. Nice half-Jewish girl. She was really good to work with. Great sense of humor. Nice pair of boobs. No, no wait! Don’t go there! She’s a nice girl. And that girl playing Willow, that Alyson Hannigan. Lotta fun, too. Good people. And, you know, they really should do more scenes together: Alyson and Sarah Michelle. Like that kissing scene they did. They could be in the cafeteria after a food fight, and they’re both soaking wet, and their nipples are pointy, and they start taking their clothes off and touching each other’s boobs and—” (knocking noise)  

“Paul Reubens? Mr. Paul Reubens? It’s the police! Open up.” 

“Oy, oy, wait, I’m coming! I mean, no, I’m not coming! I mean, just a minute…” 

Oy, poor Pee-wee. Such a brilliant man. So much funny material. But behind the zipper, there’s a dark side, which is why I would like to dedicate this little poem to Paul Reubens: 

Oy, pity the poor Pee-wee Herman

Arrested for moanin’ and squirmin’ 

For he masturbated

to pictures x-rated

`Cause he has no girl to put sperm-in.

And to think, they picked that anti-Semite, Amiri Baraka, to be poet laureate when I’m right here creating gems like that. 

In other news for Jews: recently released files obtained under the Freedom of Information Act shows that the FBI hounded chess master Bobby Fischer for years under the assumption that he or his mother was a Communist spy. According to the Associated Press, the FBI was especially interested in Bobby Fischer’s 1958 trip to Russia. An agent posed as a student journalist to interview producers of the television show, “I’ve Got a Secret,” which featured Fischer before he left. Informants at the tournament said that Fischer behaved badly and at one point called his mother to complain, “It’s no good here.”

Maybe there’s no direct causality here, but this hounding by the Federal Government may give some clue why Fischer, one of the great chess players of the modern era, also turned out a bissel meshiggeh [a little crazy] — throwing tantrums, making impossible demands, railing against the United States. What do you expect? He was paranoid. 

So, after winning the chess crown in 1972, he quit three years later. Still, there’s no excuse for the anti-Semitism he has been spouting for two decades. In recent radio interviews, Fischer praised the September 11th terrorist attacks, saying America should be “wiped out.” And even though his mother was Jewish, he’s described Jews as “thieving, lying bastards.” 

Mr. Fischer, you are the bastard. I’d like to take a bishop with a razor on the end of it, shove it up your tuchas, and then move it diagonally across your vital organs. And then I’d take a couple of pawns—black or white, it doesn’t matter—fry them in a skillet, and while they’re still piping hot, push them down your throat one by one. And, finally, I’d take two rooks, pour a little hydrochloric acid on the tops of them, and then thrust them, vertically, into your eye sockets. 

All right, I have issues. But he’s a putz.

In sad news: someone who wasn’t a jerk, Israeli diplomat Abba Eban, died November 17, at age 87. He was a crucial ambassador to the UN and to the US, during the formative years of Yisroel, as well through the four Arab wars of 1948, ’56, ’67, and ’73. It was Eban who coined the phrase that the Palestinians, “Never miss a chance to miss an opportunity.”

After serving in the British army during World War II, Eban quit to work diplomatically towards Israel’s independence. For obvious reasons, he started as an intellectual utopian but became more of a realist as the years went by. Still, he was always more popular overseas than he was at home, for they thought of him as sort of a snob, a dove, and more a talker than a doer. But he remained a world-famous figurehead, best known in recent years for helping write and narrate the video series, Heritage: Civilization and the Jews, which is unwatchable because he had the most nasal voice I’ve ever heard on any human being anywhere! Abba Eban: you were a good guy, and I hope you go to heaven, but whatever you do, I hope the first thing HaShem hands you is a Sudafed and a pocket inhaler. 

Finally, in news for Jews: as we said, this Friday night is the first night of Chanukah, where we celebrate the victory of Jews over Greek and Syrian forces in the second century. We light candles on the menorah for eight days to commemorate the eight straight days that a little bit of oil burned night after night in the desecrated Jerusalem temple. It burned long enough for the Hebrews to make new oil for the candelabra—oil that wasn’t made of pork or tallow or was otherwise defiled. And if you think there’s no difference between one kind of oil and another, ask George Bush why he’s bombing Iraq and not Saudi Arabia. 

And that’s News for Jews for this edition of “News Gone By,” November 24, 2002. Send in your comments, opinions, and Miss World votes to Dave’s Gone By. Unless otherwise requested, all comments and questions may be read on the air—name withheld upon request if you’re a coward. If you send potato latkes, remember that the apple sauce has to be in a separate, sealed container, or else it goes all over the mailman, and he yells at me, and he throws my magazines in the bushes. What do you expect? He’s a Lutheran. 

© 2002 David Lefkowitz & Rabbi Sol Solomon