STORYTIME: Dave Reads “A History of Underwear with Professor Chicken”
For this week’s StoryTime segment on Dave’s Gone By, Dave reads Hannah Holt’s book, “A History of Underwear with Professor Chicken”
This segment aired July 5, 2025 as part of the 989th “Dave’s Gone By” video podcast program hosted by Dave Lefkowitz. Full episodes also available on youtube, Facebook (davesgoneby), and on DavesGoneBy.com.
All content (c)2025 TotalTheater Productions.
More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com
Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for Independence Weekend 2025.
Hatred to the right of us, hatred to the left of us—especially to the left of us these days—Jews can’t look at the news without nitwits giving us grief, and bigger nitwitslauding and defending them.
The latest example comes to us from Detroit, Michigan, a city with so much Muslim integration, they might as well call it “Baby Beirut.” However, these people are not illegal terrorists; they are citizens and immigrants working, striving, paying taxes, and sending their kids to school.
One such kid is 14-year-old Danielle Khalaf. Of Palestinian origin, she does not like Israel very much. She also presumably watched one too many NFL games and noticed some athletes taking a knee rather than standing for the “Star Spangled Banner.” Well, little Danielle thought, “This is my chance to change the world!” . . . because who doesn’t take their political cues from a precocious, pubescent adolescent at East Middle School?
Instead of rising and saying the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, as millions of children have dutifully done since 1892, kooky Khalaf stayed seated and silent. That is her right as an American citizen: the prerogative to criticize the government, to wave the flag/wear the flag/or burn the flag, to buck peer pressure and march to your own drummer, even if the drummer plays like Lars Ulrich.
I’m sure Danielle, a stubby potato of a girl, who you can tell will be a middle-aged cat lady by the time she’s 22, dreams of being “courageous” like Greta “Look at Me” Thunberg. But Khalaf is far from the first person to pass on the Pledge. Atheists have long bristled at the “under God” part, and people with harelips can’t pronounce “indivisible.”
So Khalaf is entitled to her narcissistic snit over America’s military support of Israel. But her teacher, Carissa Soranno, was not happy about it and called the girl out over her Gaza grandstanding. Maybe Soranno’s pro-Israel. Maybe she’s just appalled by the girl’s refusal to pledge allegiance to this nation and no other. Soranno told her, quote, “Since you live in this country and enjoy its freedom, if you don’t like it, you should go back to your country.” When the girl repeated her sit-down protest the next day, Soranno called her “disrespectful” and said she should be ashamed of herself.
This hurt Danielle’s feewings. She was “traumatized,” she said. Awww. So traumatized she tattled to the American Civil Liberties Union. Ughhh. They filed a lawsuit against the school district and the teacher for violating Khalaf’s rights and for making her suffer, quote, “extensive emotional and social injuries.” (gasp) If a snowflake melts in a cafeteria, does it make a whine?
Nabih Ayad, a spokesperson for the Arab-American Civil Rights League, rebuked the teacher in the press, calling her insensitive for picking on a student who was merely exercising her constitutional right. The school district then said it had taken “appropriate action” against Soranno.
And maybe that’s reasonable. A teacher should display more maturity than a 14-year-old over whom she has power, and the woman’s response to Khalif was harsh, disparaging, maybe even inappropriate. Soranno acted in the heat of a moment that she might have finessed or counted to ten and avoided. But she also spoke her truth: this teenager thumbing her nose at America hurt the teacher’sfeelings.
So why isn’t the ACLU defending her? Why does Princess Jasmine get to snub the stars and stripes—a slap in the face to everyone who ever fought and died for this country, by the way—why is her free speechlessness protected, but the teacher’s isn’t? Soranno didn’t smack the kid. She didn’t dock her grade. She didn’t put baby in the corner and make her wear a dunce hijab. She didn’t glue her eyes open and force her to watch Schindler’s List. She merely called Khalaf shameful and disrespectful, and asked her, insultingly but fairly, if this country’s military choices are so hateful to her, why doesn’t she snag a one-way ticket to any country in the Arabsphere, where, of course, young women are free to do whatever they please?
Before she becomes another brainlessly woke college student blocking traffic and sleeping in a green tent, maybe this 14-year-old should learn that just because your actions are legal doesn’t mean you’re not responsible. If you give me the finger, and I call you an asshole, why does the ACLU protect your finger but attack my asshole? That didn’t come out right, but you know what I mean: freedom of speech works both ways. If Khalaf can make her stupid statement, Soranno should be able to denounce her. The school district then has the right to chastise Soranno, while patriotic parents have the right to berate the school.
Nothing is more American than a free exchange of anger, mistrust, and derision, all of it protected, as it should be, by the founding fathers. Danielle Khalaf is getting all sorts of sympathy for sitting, but I stand with Soranno. And when it comes to the ACLU’s lamebrain lawsuit, I paraphrase the Pledge and hope the teacher receives the justice meant for all.
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York. Yankee Doodle dammit.
Dave’s Gone By Skit (6/28/2025): STORYTIME: Dave Reads “Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva”
For this week’s StoryTime segment on Dave’s Gone By, Dave reads the religious children’s book on Buddhism, “Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva” This segment aired June 28, 2025 as part of the 988th “Dave’s Gone By” video podcast program hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.
Full episodes also available on youtube, Facebook (davesgoneby), and on DavesGoneBy.com.
All content (c)2025 TotalTheater Productions.
More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com
Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #195 (6/28/2025): ZOHRAN MAMDANI
This Rabbinical Reflection first aired June 28, 2025 on the Dave’s Gone By video podcast.
Rabbi Sol’s Rabbinical Reflections are heard on the long-running Dave’s Gone By radio/video podcast program (davesgoneby.com) and then archived as text and audio on the Rebbe’s blog, Shalomdammit.com, where a transcript of this Reflection may be read.
Rabbi Sol is also the creator of the stage show, “Shalom Dammit! An Evening with Rabbi Sol Solomon,” which played in NYC in Nov. 2011 and Aug. 2012.
RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #195 (6/25/2025): Zohran Mamdani
airs June 28, 2025 on Dave’s Gone By. Watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_8PqbgcvwE
Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for late June 2025.
Well, congratulations, progressive Democrats. Your efforts to transform once-magnificent New York City into a terrifying shithole are going splendidly. On June 24th, Primary Day in NYC, voters rejected Andrew Cuomo—whose only sin was hubris and killing a bunch of old people during COVID (ask yourself: were they missed?). Instead, these lefty losers pulled the trigger – er, lever – for Zohran Mamdani.
Who is Zohran Mamdani? Or, more precisely, who the fuck is Zohran Mamdani? He’s the son of a Columbia Professor of Colonialism (that should tell you something right there) and of a filmmaker mom who’s spent a decade boycotting Israel. Little Zohran got his start stumping for a Palestinian pastor and joining the anti-Zionist Democratic Socialists of America. Bolstered by these unassailable credentials, in 2020 Mamdani was elected Assemblyman for Astoria and Long Island City, Queens.
Like so many liberal Democrats, Mamdani has ideas that sound good on paper: raising minimum wage, free busing, government-run free grocery stores for the poor (can you say, Russia 1970s?), prison reform. But like so many socialists, he has no idea where to get the money to pay for this Marxist utopia. But that’s okay; all politicians promise pie in the sky but deliver olive loaf in the gutter. The disaster of Mamdani is not inexperience and economic naivete. His worthlessness boils down to one issue: virulent hatred of Israel. When you elect someone whose rallying cry is “globalize the Intifada,” who calls Israel’s revenge against Hamas “genocide,” and who refused to co-sponsor Holocaust Remembrance Day, you’re putting power in the hands of a dangerous, evil radical.
The very fact that Mamdani was backed by AOC and by Bernie Sanders, a self-hating Communist kike if there ever was one, tells you everything you need to know—except that this guy isn’t even Arab! Mamdani is Ugandan—the country that gave us Idi Amin, child soldiers, and anti-gay legislation that makes Yemen look like Rainbow Station on Christopher Street.
So, New Yorkers, when November rolls around, you have a choice. You can reelect Mayor Adams—who may not be Giuliani but he certainly moved the city past the DeBlasio debacle. You can go Republican with Curtis Sliwa, who’s run so many times, he should campaign in jogging shorts. (Actually, I think he does.) And, by the way, the platform of pro-police, anti-crime, anti-illegals, conservative Sliwa also includes pilot testing universal basic income. Put that in your progressive pipe and smoke it!
Oh, and there’s also an independent candidate: Jim Walden, a high-powered attorney who has as much chance of winning as I have of growing my foreskin back. Then again, the impossible and unthinkable have happened so many times the past couple years, I keep Ripley’s Believe it or Not on speed dial.
What I do believe is that Big Apple Democrats now have their own Trump – a scary wildcard they chose mainly to signal their exasperation with the status quo. Or at least I hope that was the motivation. The other option is that pro-Muslim anti-Semitism has become so ingrained in the left—even the Jewish left—that they’d vote for Bin Laden if he used the right pronouns.
Me? I fear for New York and America, not because Zohran Mamdani will build concentration camps or start pogroms, or close all the delis. I dread a culture that turns a blind eye to hateful ideology and a deaf ear to common sense. Too often, socialist policies meant to provide a safety net instead ignite lawlessness. But look on the bright side: there’s always sharia law.
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, (you should pardon the expression), New York.
Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #194 (6/14/2025): SLY & BRI
This Rabbinical Reflection first aired June 14, 2025 on the Dave’s Gone By video podcast.
Rabbi Sol’s Rabbinical Reflections are heard on the long-running Dave’s Gone By radio/video podcast program (davesgoneby.com) and then archived as text and audio on the Rebbe’s blog, Shalomdammit.com, where a transcript of this Reflection may be read.
Rabbi Sol is also the creator of the stage show, “Shalom Dammit! An Evening with Rabbi Sol Solomon,” which played in NYC in Nov. 2011 and Aug. 2012.
More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com
Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for mid-June 2025.
Oy, what a sad week for music-loving Boomers like yours jewly. On Monday June 9th, Sylvester Stewart, aka Sly Stone, passed away at the surprisingly old age of 82. Just two days later, Brian Wilson, wunderkind of the Beach Boys, left this world at the very same age.
Talk about influential! Not only are rap and hip hop children of Sly’s beats, but any music group with a big sound and a desire to be inclusive and idealistic owes a debt to the Family Stone. After all, the band comprised white guys, black guys, an Italian dude, and women, including their keyboardist Rose and beloved trumpet player, Cynthia. If she had done nothing else but scream “All the squares go home” and “all together now!” her place in music history would be secure. And the person who gave her that place was Sly Stone, whose songs like “Everyday People,” “Stand,” “If You Want Me to Stay,” and “Everybody is a Star” reached for the stars and grabbed them. At their peak, Sly and the Family Stone were like the 4th of July, a 1960s peace march, and a Diddy party all rolled into one.
Meanwhile, the Beach Boys began as a whiter, mellower party: California kids catchin’ a wave, cruisin’ in cool cars, and already feeling nostalgic about their youth and good times slipping away. And, as Brian Wilson deepened his themes, he simultaneously morphed into one of the greatest arrangers in pop history. If Phil Spector built a wall of sound, Wilson constructed a Legosphere of harmony, eccentricity, and fun. When the album Pet Sounds came out, the Beatles heard it and said, “We’ve gotta do better.” They did. And when “Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” was released, Brian Wilson said, “I’ve gotta do better.” He didn’t. And laboring on Smile, or Smiley Smile, or “Smiling the Smiles of Guy Smiley” broke Wilson’s brain. Still, for a short time, Sly Stone and Brian Wilson had the Mozart thing: God was comin’ through them, touching everything they did.
Now, is it because they were both crazy? Did they each self-destruct because that level of genius has to flame out after burning so bright? Maybe. They also did a mountain of drugs. Brian, already a schizophrenic, used coke and LSD to enhance his creativity; Sly, wanting to take himself higher, used PCP and crack because back then, that was a rock star. Both of these idiots mashed their cerebrums into oatmeal. Sly turned paranoid, canceled gigs, ran through his fortune, and squandered every opportunity for a comeback owing to his aberrant behavior. Brian was a little luckier. He found a therapist, who was both a shyster and a miracle worker. Depressed, bedbound, and obese, Wilson nonetheless kept coming back to music, and by the 1990s was again recording, producing, and even touring. They say the last two years he was struggling with dementia but…when wasn’t he?
So, kids, here’s a cautionary tale: to quote South Park’s Mr. Mackey, “Drugs are bad, m’kay?” Say all you want about personal freedom, state law versus federal, edible versus smokeable—if you’re gonna put your mind on a rollercoaster, the seatbelt is not guaranteed.
Which brings us back again to the consolation prize that both Sly Stone and Brian Wilson lived a lot longer than their lifestyles promised. Both men saw themselves appreciated and sampled by new generations, and revered for their contributions to culture. Sly taught us to accept that different folks have different strokes. Brian looked at our burdensome world, and, rather than complain, sought the silver lining saying, “Wouldn’t it be nice?” God only knows what music would have been without the two of them.
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York. Boom Shaka laka laka boom.
Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #193 (6/7/2025): TONY AWARDS 2025
This Rabbinical Reflection first aired June 7, 2025 on the Dave’s Gone By video podcast.
Rabbi Sol’s Rabbinical Reflections are heard on the long-running Dave’s Gone By radio/video podcast program (davesgoneby.com) and then archived as text and audio on the Rebbe’s blog, Shalomdammit.com, where a transcript of this Reflection may be read.
Rabbi Sol is also the creator of the stage show, “Shalom Dammit! An Evening with Rabbi Sol Solomon,” which played in NYC in Nov. 2011 and Aug. 2012.
More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com
More on Rabbi Sol: shalomdammit.com
TRANSCRIPT:
RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #193 (5/31/2025): Tony Awards 2025
Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for June 7—Tony time!—2025.
As the emcee in Cabaret says, “Where are your troubles now? Inside, outside—they’re goddamn everywhere!” But for one night, we dial back our anxiety and dyspepsia over the world around us and fixate, joyously, on art. The Tony Awards, honoring excellence on Broadway, is more than a bunch of navel-gazing artistes congratulating each each other because, at least for a while, they don’t have to get a real job. No, the American theater can be spectacular: meaningful, playful, beautiful, a temple—just without the yarmulke bin.
And I make this synagoguian analogy because every year I do a special Rabbinical Reflection celebrating Broadway—in particular, the Jews who make it happen. Sure, the Great White Way isn’t that white anymore, and that’s a good thing, but let’s be clear: without us chosen, those curtains would be closin’.
Just look at the winners of the special awards this year: Harvey Fierstein! Lifetime Achievement recipient for La Cage, Torch Song, Kinky Boots, he even played Tevye. There wouldn’t be Newsies without Jewsies! And besides, who but a Jew would title a musical, A Catered Affair?
If Harvey Fierstein is a ringer, let’s not forget another honoree: Michael P. Price. He spent 40 years in Connecticut regional theater doing a good deed for the Goodspeed. Price told the Jewish Ledger, and I quote, “The Jewish community is essential to any arts endeavor. I find it difficult to separate my work in the theater and my work as a Jew.” Personally, I find it difficult to separate anything about me from Jewishness, up to and including my prostate. But I digress.
I must say it is disappointing that all the Tony nominees for Best Play are as goyische as a ham sandwich dipped in a martini. These are the first names of the playwrights: Sanaz, Jez, Kimberly, Cole, and Branden. Hearing those names makes me feel like I’m on a trawler in Martha’s Vineyard. There’s a bit better luck with the musicals. David Yazbek did the songs for Dead Outlaw, and Will Aronson co-wrote the sleeper hit Maybe Happy Ending. I don’t think any of the creators of Death Becomes Her are Jewish, but the show is about two bitchy women constantly getting work done, so…close enough.
That said, where are the Jews in the performance categories? Lead actors run from the Irish George Clooney to the Korean Daniel Dae Kim, while the women range from Irish Laura Donnelly to Irish Mia Farrow. There’s one girl named Sadie but…not that kind of Sadie. At least a couple of the featured performers are tribal: Jessica Hecht of Eureka Day identifies as a reconstructionist Jew; Danny Burstein is only half-Jewish, but he’s playing Herbie in Gypsy and, like Harvey he was once a Tevye, so…we’ll take him.
Still, the paucity of Yidlach in this year’s Tony roster distresses me. Have my people stepped away—or been nudged away—owing to the gusher of anti-Semitism in which the liberal community now bathes itself? Are Jews last year’s news because audiences whoop at every Star Search yodel and smugly applaud every woke dogwhistle, but they’ve forgotten how to sit still and watch? Maybe Jews are sparse because Broadway producers pick one or two avatars to represent the race—say, Tom Stoppard and Joshua Harmon—but more than that feels excessive?
Whatever the reason, it would be nice to see a Hebraic renaissance at next year’s Tonys. Nominees will wear their Jewishness proudly—the actors putting on snug tuxedo pants that outline their foreskinless fazoozles, the actresses brazenly displaying their original noses. And when some deluded nominee strides the carpet displaying a Palestinian flagpin or a red hand for Gaza, may they be outnumbered by a sea of blue and white buttons, with six-pointed stars and a hamsa with the middle finger pointed straight up.
Let me close by offering some lyrics from the admirable if ponderous musical revival of Floyd Collins, written by two Jews: Tina Landau and composer-lyricist Adam Guettel — who’s Richard Rodgers’s grandson, no less. At the end of the show, the lead character sings, “Only Heaven knows how glory goes, What each of us was meant to be. In the starlight, that is what we are; I can see so far.” And then he dies because he’s stuck inside a cave. Spoiler alert! Oops, I should have said that before I…but anyway: every artist working on and off-Broadway, no matter their race or ethnicity, is laboring to create a glimmer of glory, a wondrous escape from our cruddy world—even when they have to bury our noses in the crud to help us understand it. Music, drama, dance—they help us see what we are, and boy can they take us far.
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York. Curtain up—and stay away from caves!
Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #192 (3/15/2025): MAHMOUD KHALIL
This Rabbinical Reflection first aired March 15, 2025 the Dave’s Gone By video podcast.
Rabbi Sol’s Rabbinical Reflections are heard on the long-running Dave’s Gone By radio/video podcast program (davesgoneby.com) and then archived as text and audio on the Rebbe’s blog, Shalomdammit.com, where a transcript of this Reflection may be read.
Rabbi Sol is also the creator of the stage show, “Shalom Dammit! An Evening with Rabbi Sol Solomon,” which played in NYC in Nov. 2011 and Aug. 2012.
More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com
More on Rabbi Sol: shalomdammit.com
TRANSCRIPT:
Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for mid-March 2025.
Let me tell you about a man who’s having all sorts of trouble…because he made all sorts of trouble. It’s a fella named Mahmoud Khalil, a foreign-born graduate of Columbia University now facing deportation even though he has a green card. Why would he be taken from his home, without arrest, and threatened with expulsion from this great country? Why would our power-mad president focus on this individual and make an example of him, even though he has seemingly committed no crime?
I’ll tell you why. Because this Khalil snake, that the left wing—including Jews — have embraced to the point of calling him chummily by his first name, Mahmoud, like he’s their innocent little brother, this Khalil got himself involved in protests at Columbia that did break laws, that did threaten people, that knowingly disrupted access to college life on campus.
Understand something about this Khalil character — one reason he’s here is because when he was a kid, his family to had escape their homeland of Syria. Yes, Israel is such a violent and terrible oppressor of the Arab world; meanwhile, 580 million harmonious, Koran-loving Syrians slaughtered each other in their own Civil War. Where were all the campus protests about that little party, I wonder?
Anyhoo, Khalil comes to the US on a student visa and starts working on his master’s degree, yet somehow he has time to get involved in all these anti-Israel demonstrations. In fact, he was suspended from Columbia when police swooped down on one of the protests that occupied and vandalized buildings. Khalil says he was just there to negotiate between the students and the admins, but why was he tangled up with these yahoos in the first place?
Which goes to why this is more than just a case of a harmless imbecile engaging in free speech. Or even hateful speech. Khalil can rant all he wants about Zionist oppression and Israeli “apartheid,” but if you are leading a group that creates unsafe conditions and then refuses to pack up its tents and go when the police say, “pack up your tents and go,” your green card hits a red light.
Khalil says he spent the last two years deliberately threading the needle—not getting too close to the lawbreaking, not spending his nights on the lawns or blocking pathways to school buildings. How prudent of him. And yet, despite keeping one foot on the sidelines, he still provided aid and comfort to our lawbreaking enemies. So you Jews who are defending this piece of rancid hummus in the name of free speech, wake up. The Khalil case is about unlawful assembly, intimidation, and destruction of property. It’s just icing on the cake that he supports virulent anti-Israel rhetoric from radicals who champion a race of people who frequently cut off heads in the name of religion—the religion of peace, no less.
So grant Mahmoud Kha-loser his due process. Give him a fair trial and allow him to plead his case: “Your honor, I’m a social justice warrior whose weapon is merely words. If I say `Israel should be pushed into the sea and all the Jews drowned with it,’ well, who’m I really harming? So please let me stay in America so I can raise my son” [yes, Khalil’s wife is eight months pregnant and ready to spawn] “so I can raise my son to despise the Yids as much as I do. God bless America. Hartley Hall Akbar.”
Should Mahmoud Khalil legally prove himself, fair enough, he stays. And he can wish Israel all the injury he pleases. But free speech works both ways. I can wish him a thousand kinds of cancer, and pray for his baby son to be torn to pieces and devoured by raccoons, who then defecate the baby’s remains into a felafel that Mahmoud and his wife are forced to eat at gunpoint. Before they’re shot anyway.
What? Offensive? Hate speech? But…but…it’s just words. Sure hope they don’t deport me from Great Neck back to…Brooklyn. This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.
The rules of Dave’s Big Dictionary are simple: a word is chosen randomly from Merriam-Webster’s dictionary. Host Dave Lefkowitz must then talk extemporaneously about whatever the word brings to mind.
This segment aired March 8, 2025 as part of the 979th “Dave’s Gone By” video podcast program hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.
Full episodes also available on youtube, Facebook (davesgoneby), and on DavesGoneBy.com. All content (c)2025 TotalTheater Productions.
More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com
Dave’s Gone By Skit (2/22/2025): DAVE’S BIG DICTIONARY – Enema
The rules of Dave’s Big Dictionary are simple: a word is chosen randomly from Merriam-Webster’s dictionary. Host Dave Lefkowitz must then talk extemporaneously about whatever the word brings to mind.
This segment aired Feb. 22, 2025 as part of the 978th “Dave’s Gone By” video podcast program hosted by Dave Lefkowitz. Full episodes also available on youtube, Facebook (davesgoneby), and on DavesGoneBy.com.
All content (c)2025 TotalTheater Productions.
More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com More on Rabbi Sol: shalomdammit.com
Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #191 (2/8/2025): GAZALAND?
This Rabbinical Reflection first aired Feb. 8, 2025 the Dave’s Gone By video podcast.
Rabbi Sol’s Rabbinical Reflections are heard on the long-running Dave’s Gone By radio/video podcast program (davesgoneby.com) and then archived as text and audio on the Rebbe’s blog, Shalomdammit.com, where a transcript of this Reflection may be read.
Rabbi Sol is also the creator of the stage show, “Shalom Dammit! An Evening with Rabbi Sol Solomon,” which played in NYC in Nov. 2011 and Aug. 2012.
More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com
More on Rabbi Sol: shalomdammit.com
TRANSCRIPT:
Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #191 (2/8/2025): GAZALAND?
airs Feb. 8, 2025 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip:
Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for mid-February 2025.
I hate to say “I told you so.”
No, I love to say “I told you so.” I TOLD YOU SO! For 25 years I’ve been ranting about what to do with unfriendly Arabs living in Israel. Time and again you’ve heard me holler that if the Palestinians can’t accept Israel as a Jewish state, and if they can’t live in peace with their Semitic cousins, get them gone. Let their neighbors—in 22 Arab countries and 54 African countries—take them, assimilate them, give them 40 acres and a camel. Leave tiny Israel for the Jews because unlike Jews, Muslims can live almost anywhere else. But no, Palestinians wanted right of return and demanded their chunk of Israel’s sliver. That is, when they weren’t calling for the destruction of Yisroel altogether.
After years of terrorist attacks around the world, not to mention 9/11—which I just mentioned—the Mohammedans still rejected brotherhood. Instead, they gave mass murder one more go. On October 7, 2023, Hamas attacked an Israeli music festival and slaughtered 1200 innocent people. Hamas thought the world would go “tsk tsk” for a few days, and then be on their side.
Which is exactly what happened. Left-wing politicians clutched their pearls over over Israel’s so-called “occupation” of its own land. Every major city saw “Free Gaza” and “Stop the Genocide!” spray painted on sidewalks by morons who I’ll bet couldn’t spell “sidewalk.” And speaking of imbeciles, college students obstructed traffic and made their tuition-paying parents cringe to see tent cities, wanton vandalism, and anti-Semitism masquerading as altruism. The media ate it all up.
But then a funny thing happened. America’s wobbly, slightly demented president couldn’t stumble through the election-day finish line, and his middling replacement lost both the popular and electoral vote. Unlikely as it was, on January 20th, America’s previous, very demented president came back into office and began setting off policy time bombs from day one.
Some of Trump’s ideas are crazy, some unworkable, some brilliant, and one is my dream come true. After 15 months of Israel rightfully turning Gaza into Hiroshigaza, the place is unlivable. But just like Japan in 1945, New Orleans after Katrina, and Pacific Palisades as we speak, you can always rebuild. So President Trump says, “Hey, instead of 80 years of conflict, let’s have nobody occupy that shithole for a while. America steps in, contractors get to work, and instead of tenements, bombs, and sand, we’ll have hotels, high-end shopping, casinos, Starbucks, and TD Banks.” American ingenuity and dollars could turn Gaza into a `Middle-Eastern Riviera’—that is the President’s own phrase.
Of course the Democrats pilloried him; of course the terrorist apologists saw it as manifest destiny and nation building all over again. But I don’t hear Netanyahu complaining. And for all the two-state-solutionists who wanted an “international city” that the two countries wouldn’t fight over…isn’t this it?
What if Trump convinces Disney to put a Disneyworld there? Well, it would suck, because it’s Disneyworld, but it’s a start. What if the mafiosos from Vegas built another Luxor in a place where the pyramid theme would actually make sense? What if Chik-fil-A’s built fifty Chickpea Felafels, just to be culturally sensitive?
Mock our president’s bombast all you wish, but nothing else has worked in the region. We’ve tried diplomacy, we’ve tried self-rule, God knows we’ve tried war; why not try balls-out, last-one-to-the-money-trough-is-a-rotten-egg capitalism? Envision a day a decade from now, when Israelis, bored by the Wailing Wall, Egyptians, weary of the Sphinx, Saudi Arabians wanting a Mecca break, Emirati, who are just so done with Dubai—all of them think, “Hey, honey. Let’s take a long weekend in Gazawood. You book the spa, I’ll hit the links, and then we’ll catch Willie Nelson at Madison Square Gazarden!” Israel would be protected, Palestinians would have homes and jobs, and Paramount would have a cheap place to shoot new episodes of Yellowstone. Except, of course, that Gaza wouldn’t look like Yellowstone anymore; it’d be closer to the Yellow Brick Road. I say, Follow!
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.
