click above to watch the interviewclick above to listen (audio only)
Rabbi Sol Solomon chats with playwright S. ASHER GELMAN
Topics include: The Zionists, Afterglow, Israel
Segment airs April 11, 2026 as part of episode #1028 of the “Dave’s Gone By” radio/video podcast program hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.
Please Note: Segments extracted from “Dave’s Gone By” may have music and other elements removed for timing and media re-posting considerations. For the full interview with all elements, please visit the audio of the complete original broadcast.
All content (c)2026 TotalTheater Productions.
More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com
Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #206 (4/4/2026): PASSOVER TODAY
This Rabbinical Reflection first aired April 4, 2026 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 #206 (4/4/2026): Passover Today
(c)2026 David Lefkowitz. aired April 4, 2026 on Dave’s Gone By. Watch:
Shalom, Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon, with a Rabbinical Reflection for Passover 2026.
My friends and acolytes, I hope you are savoring a safe and pleasant Pesach: carbing up on matzoh, guzzling down the Manischewitz, feeling gratitude that however cruddy things are for Jews right now, at least we’re not slaves to Pharaoh in Egpyt. We’re wage slaves to one-percent billionaires, but still, an improvement.
If you were at a Seder this year, you saw all the important symbols of Passover – objects on the table, all representing aspects of our exodus. I would like to recap those, but instead of the typical symbolism explained in the Haggadah, I intend to connect the Seder plate items to our modern situation as Jews today. So pay attention, dammit!
We begin, of course, with the matzoh. This is the unleavened bread our forefathers ate when they were scrambling out of Eretz Mitzrayim because there was no time to make baquettes. Matzahs are flat, ugly, and tasteless – like Billie Eilish. We eat matzah to remind us how afflicted we are by pop stars who anoint themselves as political oracles and then bash Israel while defending murderous, backward Arab regimes. Discouraged? Just remember: in the first part of the seder, we pay much attention to matzah. But then we break it up, it crumbles, and soon it’s forgotten. Are you listening, Chappell Roan? Couple months, no one’s listening to you.
Next on the Seder Plate we have a roasted shankbone, which represents sacrifice, the animal sacrifices our ancestors made to HaShem, and also what they had to give up to wander in the desert for 40 years. Please add to that the sacrifices Israelis are making now to rid the world of Iranian nukes and knuckleheads. Also, the tzuris all Jews are enduring because Israel’s very existence is seen as a colonial catastrophe. The z’roah, therefore, symbolizes the boner that liberals get when they can let their pent-up anti-Semitism loose under the guise of anti-Zionism.
Also on the plate: a egg. Hard-boiled, like Bibi Netanyahu. The beitzah makes us think of birth, growth, renewal. We can also equate the egg with speeches of Bernie Sanders because like an egg, they come out of an asshole.
Next, we have bitter herbs – not to confused with bitter guys named Herb who lose everything in a divorce. No, bitter herbs are sour veggies or horseradish meant to evoke tears for our enslaved antecedents. If, at your Seder, you convince a gentile to eat a spoonful of white horseradish that he has mistaken for pudding, that’s a great way of getting revenge for the Inquisitions, one goy at a time.
But don’t put away the vegetables yet. There’s a spot on the Seder plate for other leafy greens. These are to remind us – well, me — that no matter how much this world makes me want to hide in a corner consuming brisket and Joyva ring jells until I reach a food coma, that would merely delay the issues I must confront eventually. Herbs and flora remind us: first the spinach, then the chocolate lollycones. It’s delayed gratification, which is, let’s face it, the whole fucking history of Judaism.
Speaking of gratification, at last we get to something edible – charoset! It’s a kind of chutney made from apples, cinnamon, nuts, and wine. If you balance the ingredients, it’s unbelievably delicious. If you use too much of one item…it’s still frickin’ delicious, it’s charoset! – which represents the sweetness of freedom. Also, it looks like a hybrid of shit and cement. When we persecute immigrants, legal or otherwise, just because they’re foreign, we’re forgetting that this country was built by these people out of shit and cement: plumbing, sewers, agriculture, and the concrete of roads and buildings. By all means, let’s keep tabs on our migrants, but acknowledge they usually make our lives pretty sweet.
Lastly we get to karpas, or parsley, which is another goddamn vegetable, which makes me pine for brisket even more.
There you have the essential items on the Passover seder plate, a mix of bitter and sweet, hard and soft, smooth and crunchy, eggy and whatever the opposite of eggy is. These foods encompass the contradictions of life and the variety of our Judaic experience. They also remind us that while the goyim celebrate Easter with glazed ham, lamb shanks, and roasted potatoes, we’re eating this crap. No wonder Herb is bitter.
Still, I wish you a peaceful Pesach, with next year in Jerusalem or any place in Israel because it’s ours.
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches. Kol b’seder.
click above to watch episode #1023click above to listen (audio only)
Here is episode #1023 of the long-running radio show/video podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired live on Facebook, Saturday morning, March 7, 2026.
Featuring: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews dancer Valentina Kozlova; Greeley Times; Colorado Limerick of the Damned (Codo); StoryTime (“Fanny’s Big Idea”); Dave’s Big Dictionary (libertine); Bunion Watch.
Guests: dancer Valentina Kozlova; spiritual leader Rabbi Sol Solomon
00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN: weather, Iran 00:29:00 DAVE’S BIG DICTIONARY: libertine 00:40:00 GREELEY TIMES 01:10:00 BUNION WATCH 01:15:00 GUEST: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews Valentina Kozlova 01:55:00 STORYTIME w/ Rabbi Sol Solomon: “Fanny’s Big Idea” (by Bernard Michelson) 02:19:00 COLORADO LIMERICK OF THE DAMNED: Codo, CO 02:26:00 Friends of the Daverhood 02:33:00 RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #203: I’ve Got Mail! 02:40:30 DAVE GOES OUT
RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #203 (3/7/2026): I’ve Got Mail!
This Rabbinical Reflection first aired March 7, 2026 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:
Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for early March 2026.
My friends, I do so much talking and sermonizing in these Rabbinical Reflections, sometimes I forget that being a clergyman goes both ways. I don’t go both ways, I like the frum pussy, but in terms of relating to you, my flock, I should take more opportunities to acknowledge your responses — give feedback to your feedback, if you will. And you will.
So in this Reflection, I am skinnydipping into my mailbox to reply to your queries with the naked truth.
Back in June of last year, I expressed worry that Zohran Mamdani would become the Mayor of New York City, which, alas, came to pass. A YouTube viewer wrote, “Zohran’s refusal to acknowledge the existence of Israel as a Jewish state during the debate is telling.” Darn tootin’ it’s telling, and I told you so. Big surprise that last week’s joint attack by the United States and Israel on Iran led Mamdani to hyperventilate about what he termed “a catastrophic escalation in an illegal war of aggression.” No word about the thousands of Americans who died, directly or indirectly, at the hands of the last two cockamamie Khamenis. No memory of the American hostages held for more than a year during the Carter administration. No acknowledgement of the mass executions these dictators have ordered of their own people, all the way from 1988 through last week. Zohran, you may think President Trump is a bad guy. Sometimes he is a bad guy. But he took out a worse guy. And if you ignore the difference, you’re dumber than the left-wing schmucks who voted for you.
Also last summer, when media was running the false narrative of Palestinian children languishing because Israel was blocking their food supplies, an Arab Facebooker chided me. He wrote, “You laugh on Palestinians dying of hunger.” No, I don’t laugh on Palestinians dying of hunger. I laugh at Palestinians dying of hunger – but only because it’s not true, or if it were true, it’s because Hamas created the conditions for starvation: they started a war with an act so barbarous, starvation is too good for them. And might I add that a Jewish poster then joined the conversational thread and wrote, “Spot on, Rabbi! Preach on!” I will, my friend. And I do have a spot on my x-ray that my neurologist is looking at.
Responding to my February Reflection about anti-Zionist, semi-intellectual hypocrite Noam Chomsky showing up in the Epstein Files, a YouTube viewer with a Greek name so long you have to breathe twice in the middle of it, wrote, “God bless you, Rabbi Sol Solomon!” He followed it with emojis of an Israeli flag, a Greek flag, and two fingers making a peace sign. All I can say is thank you, Ileos! I am honored to know that you are right behind me, which is the Greek way.
Finally, a Mr. Richard Feder of Fort Lee, New Jersey, writes, “Dear Rabbi Sol Solomon, Aren’t you worried that by toppling the Iranian government, we are further destabilizing a region that is already a powder keg?” Fair question. Of course I’m worried. I’m worried about everything. I worry about putting too much fabric softener in with my dress socks. But as for making the Middle East worse, is that even possible? Not to mention that after we struck Tehran, the Iranians responded by bombing not America, but Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain… Hey, maybe if we pull their coattails, they’ll bomb Lebanon and Syria, too.
After 50 years of Sharia shit, Iran has the chance to become a real country again. And when populations of nearby Caliphates and oligarchies see that change is possible, those dominos just might fall, too. Let the liberals kvetch, “How dare Donald Trump institute regime change! Only Congress can do that.” Well, since the hostage crisis, 24 Congresses had the chance to knock out the Supreme Leaders of Iran. Instead, they bobbed and weaved and allowed terrorists to land blow after blow in Israel, America, and around the world.
No question, Iran could become our next Afghanistan. But maybe it’ll be a new Romania. And unlike Dracula, that would not suck.
If you want to write to me — and why wouldn’t you? – please address your letters to shalomdammit@aol.com. That’s shalomdammit@aol.com. I admit, our mail carrier has a hard time delivering those letters, but I do get `em, and I appreciate the time you take to engage with me, particularly when you glorify and exalt me.
For now, though, it’s time to close the mailbox and wait for your missives to pour in. I can’t wait. I mean, I can wait, I will wait, but you know I embellish.
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 #201 (2/14/2026): NOAM CHOMSKY
This Rabbinical Reflection first aired Feb. 14, 2026 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: Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for mid-February 2026.
I had no idea! I was completely in the dark. There were rumors, but who listens to gossip?
We’ve heard these excuses from everyone from children who deny taking the last cookie to Polacks living a mile away from Auschwitz: “we were oblivious.”
That same convenient blindness now attaches itself to so many people whose names are in the unredacted files of one Jeffrey Epstein, handsome rich guy, philanthropist, party animal and, oh yeah, sex trafficker and pedophile. From Donald Trump to Prince Andrew to Woody Allen to Bill Clinton to New York Giants owner Steven Tisch, the elite were happy to hobnob with this hobgoblin because he could write a check and make your dreams come true. Or at the very least invite you to his idyllic island, complete with fruity drinks and hot-and-cold-running concubines.
Did these millionaire celebrities really know-know that what their friend was doing was a no-no? Benefit of a doubt: probably not to a full extent (Prince Andrew excepted). But there’s also not wanting to know what you know, you know? And that’s where we are with the latest name to crop up in the Epstein Chronicles: Noam Chomsky. Blathering intellectual, cunning linguist, and relentless Israel basher — he was an enemy of the state even before it became de rigueur on college campuses.
When it came to Jeffrey Epstein, however, this know-it-all, knew it not. And it isn’t that, back in the day, he hung with Epstein at social gatherings and probably looked down Ghislaine Maxwell’s blouse a time or two. No, Epstein and Chomsky exchanged letters long after the former was convicted of soliciting prostitution from a minor. What he was doing in in a mine, I don’t know. But the point is, Jeffrey asked Noam, “Hey, I’m in legal tzuris here, and the press is up my tuchas. What do I do?” And Chomsky’s advice was not, “Don’t pimp children.” (Or he might have found a more syntactically interesting way to put it.) Instead, the professor told him, “Ignore the press. Shtup the hysterical media. It’s all hashtag-Me-Too overreach. Don’t they know what a fantastic wealthy decent wealthy entertaining wealthy influential wealthy man you are? And by the way, your wife has an okay rack.”
Following a stroke in 2023, 97-year-old Chomsky is unable to communicate — which may be the best news so far this year. But his wife, a translator and legal analyst, has piped up in Noam’s defense. She says, yes, in retrospect, their pal Epstein was a weentzy bit evil. She chalked her husband’s ignorance up to “careless research.” Hmm. Makes you wonder what else this M.I.T. academic, who published over 150 books, got wrong. Could it be everything? An anti-Communist who defended Pol Pot, an anti-capitalist with a very profitable stock portfolio, and a Jew, whose defense of free speech was really helpful to Holocaust deniers, Noam Chomsky can’t tell the heroes from the villains. Which means that perhaps his positing of Israel as the boogeyman proves he’s the bullshit-man.
So let the leftists quote him, let the intifadans venerate him. I say shtup him, which I guarantee you’d have to pay a 15-year-old girl from Saint Thomas a huge bonus to do.
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.
Rabbi Sol Solomon sings a new Beatles parody, “Hey Jews.”
This segment airs Feb. 7, 2026 on the “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)2026 TotalTheater Productions.
More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com
More information on Rabbi Sol Solomon: shalomdammit.com.
HEY JEWS
(Sung to the melody of The Beatles’s “Hey Jude” by John Lennon & Paul McCartney)
Hey Jews
I know it’s bad
These are sad times but they’ll get better
Remember although it’s hard to be sure
We will endure
If we stick together
Hey Jews
Don’t be afraid
They may hate us, but we can get them
The minute you let them under your skin
They start to win
So just don’t let them.
So any time you’re losing hope
Hey Jews, don’t mope
Don’t go through the world like woeful sad sacks
`Cause we all know the world’s a mess
But if you stress
And carry that weight, you’ll just get bad backs
Oy oy oy oy oy, oy oy oy oy
Hey Jews
They’ll shout you down
Stupid students so loud and phony
They’re screaming and holding up silly signs
Just let them whine
In their sanctimony
So any time you feel despair
Just say a prayer
A bracha will keep you on the right track
Well don’t you know your enemies
May swarm like fleas
But please rest assured, we always fight back
Oy oy oy oy oy, yasher koach
Hey Jews,
We’ll be okay
Keep your heads down in your Siddurim
Remember to always wear your kippot
From Shavuot to Shushan Purim
Purim Purim Purim Purim Purim oyyyyyyyy!!
Nah nah nah, Wear your kippah
Rosh Hashanah, Hey Jews
Hey Jews: you can’t lose
Nah nah nah, Read your Mishnah
Read the Torah, Hey Jews
Susan Sarandon will soon be abandoned
Nah nah nah, Cut the challah,
Light havdalah, Hey Jews
Greta’s flotilla will tumble and spill`er
Nah nah nah, Dance the hora,
Mourn the Shoah, Hey Jews
Cynthia Nixon: her brain could use fixin’
Nah nah nah, sittin’ shiva
In the Sukkah, Hey Jews
Here is what we know: screw Brian Eno
Nah nah nah, join kehilla
Do amidah, Hey Jews
Javier Bardem: oh, just disregard `im
Nah nah nah, Learn the parsha
Whole Megillah, Hey Jews
Hide your daughters from Roger Waters
Nah nah nah, Learn halacha
Learn Kabbalah, Hey Jews
Hey John Cusack a brain is what you lack
Nah nah nah, do a mitzvah
with Kavanah, Hey Jews
Mandy Patinkin: I’m thinkin’ you’re stinkin’
Nah nah nah, Hallelujah
Give tzedakah, Hey Jews
Dave Chappelle can go to hell
Nah nah nah, eatin’ halvah
In the mikvah, Hey Jews
We love Debra Messing; that girl is a blessing!
Nah nah nah, lit menorah
On the bimah, Hey Jews
Tovah Feldshuh is really a swell Jew!
Nah nah nah, say a bracha
Eatin’ matzah, Hey Jews
Michael Rappaport…I can’t rhyme that but you’re great!
Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the end of the year, 2025.
I don’t think I know anyone who hasn’t had a cruddy year. If they’re not upset with politics and the government, they’re dealing with death, illness, financial stress, mental problems, dental problems — if you actually had a good year in 2025, please let me know your phone number so I can play it for Lotto.
But here it is, December 31st, and whaddya know? You survived. I’m not saying you thrived, but you endured. And I hope you got your jollies along the way. Not every news event was tragic, and a few sad stories had silver linings. Pope Francis died, but the new guy’s from Chicago. He’s on the conservative side, but what do you expect from a Pope, Ru Paul? And while inflation is scaring everyone who has to buy a house, a car, a health plan, or, you know, groceries, the stock market has remained a juggernaut. Therefore, if, by the time you retire, you haven’t given all your money to Aetna, you might have a few bucks left in your 401K… to spend on cat food.
Politically it was another Civil War-level year, with liberals screaming “disaster!” at Trump’s every move, and Trump often deserving the screams. Did he need to renovate the White House Ballroom and make the silverware goldenware? Did he have to put his name on the memorial Kennedy Center — I mean, Trump’s bullet missed! And did the President have to redact all those pages in the Epstein files that showed him to be almost as big a perv as Bill Clinton? Well, at least Trump is ridding the country of useless foreigners with questionable visas. Anybody seen Melania lately?
Meanwhile, antisemitism, disguised as antizionism, still gives college students and left-wing wingnuts a hard-on, but Israel and the Palestinians are holding to some kind of cease fire, while America’s been going after ISIS in Syria and Nigeria and stopping nukes in Iran. And while the mass murder at a Chanukah festival in Bondi Beach reminded us Jews are still hated, a clump of Jewish corpses granted us a day or two of sympathy before the clown cars returned with their Free Gaza circus act. God help us, New York elected a rabidly anti-Israel socialist mayor, but the good news is: Mamdani’s policies will be so ruinous, bankrupting, and unenforceable, no one’s gonna give an alqaraf what he believes!
Oh, and if it’s not already evident, let me assert that this Rabbinical Reflection was written entirely with my two little hands and my too-preoccupied brain. That is to say, any intelligence you happen to find in my prose may be unexpected but not artificial. 2025 was the year that everything on social media or the internet was suspect. From heartwarming parables about celebrities to the sloppiest slop, algorithms were telling us what to buy, how to think, and where to vent. It was the year academics gave up fighting A.I. and instead told students, “Hey, my ChatGPT wrote this exam. Have your Grammarly take it, and then my Copilot will grade it. And afterwards we can all meet on the unemployment line because nobody has to fucking know anything anymore.”
But I digress. Anger is not the endgame of my annual review of the annum gone by. Nostalgic melancholy is more the mood because now is time to remember those we lost. Musicians, authors, performers — folks who left their mark, so in poetic form, we mark their passing.
Farewell to Pope Francis, as Popes go, a goodie
Adieu, Diane Keaton, we loved you with Woody
With his gifted family, Sly Stone took us higher
And tears for Jill Sobule, who died in a fire
We lost Lalo Schiffrin and his orchestrations
Let’s hope Brian Wilson picks up good vibrations
Ace Frehley and Ozzy now sleep in the sand
And farewell Garth Hudson, the last of The Band.
We lost Malcolm-Jamal Warner when he lost his grips
Loretta Swit and Chuck Mangione have sealed their hot lips
Farewell to Rob Reiner, what great films he did!
If only Nick Reiner was Greta Thunberg’s kid.
Tom Stoppard whose plays were quite The Real Thing
Now joins Robert Redford in feeling death’s Sting
Bye bye to Hulk Hogan who wrestled with glee
And Loni Anderson, who put the T&A in KRP
Ta-ta, Charlie Kirk, whose death gave us chills
So long to George Foreman whose life gave us grills
Bill Moyers once anchored the news desk with grace
And Charles Strouse helped us put on a happy face
With David Johansen we rocked and got funky
And Jane Goodall taught us the mind of a monkey
So long, David Lynch, whose films got tongues waggin’
“Puff” went Peter Yarrow, and his magic dragon
Connie Francis could sing and Roberta Flack croon
Jules Feiffer satirized life by cartoon
Gene Hackman found dead in his run-down chalet
Steve Cropper now dead on the dock of the bay
Val Kilmer, Diane Ladd, each one a sad loss
And Jimmy Cliff has no more rivers to cross
No love for Dick Cheney and his years of fears
But raise up a glass for George Wendt and his Cheers
And keep that toast going for loved ones departed
We mourn them, we miss them, and though brokenhearted
We bravely go forward through kicks, sticks, and bricks
And hope for the best in 2026.
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 episode #1012click above to listen (audio only)
Here is episode #1012 of the long-running radio show/video podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired live on Facebook, Saturday morning, Dec. 20, 2025.
Featuring: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews playwright Jeremy Kareken and reads “A Parakeet Named Dreidel”; Greeley Times; Colorado Limerick of the Damned (Cherry Knolls); My Sick Mind (The Reiners); Bunion Watch.
Guests: playwright Jeremy Kareken; spiritual leader Rabbi Sol Solomon
00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN w/ Joyce: balloons, dentist, Chanukah bagel 00:34:00 GREELEY TIMES 01:22:30 GUEST: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews Jeremy Kareken 02:04:00 STORYTIME w/ Rabbi Sol: “The Parakeet Named Dreidel” (Isaac Bashevis Singer) 02:31:00 BUNION WATCH 02:34:00 DAVE GOES FURTHER IN: Rob Reiner 02:45:00 MY SICK MIND: The Reiners 02:50:00 Friends of the Daverhood 02:57:00 COLORADO LIMERICK OF THE DAMNED: Cherry Knolls, CO 03:00:00 DAVE GOES OUT
click above to watch episode #989click above to listen (audio only)
Here is the 989th episode of the long-running radio show/video podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired live on Facebook, Saturday morning, July 5, 2025.
Featuring: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews poet Devon Fulford and offers his Rabbinical Reflection on Danielle Khalaf and the ACLU; Colorado Limerick of the Damned (Burkett); StoryTime (“A History of Underwear with Professor Chicken”); Greeley Times. Guests: poet Devon Fulford; spiritual leader Rabbi Sol Solomon.
00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN w/ Joyce: lawn animals, July 4th at Nathan’s, Richard Greenberg 01:14:00 GREELEY TIMES 01:44:30 GUEST: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews Devon Fulford 02:25:30 RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #196: Danielle Khalaf and the ACLU 02:35:30 STORYTIME: “A History of Underwear with Professor Chicken” (Hannah Holt) 02:57:30 Friends of the Daverhood 03:04:30 COLORADO LIMERICK OF THE DAMNED: Burdett, CO 03:07:00 DAVE GOES OUT
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.
