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Dave’s Gone By Skit: Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #148 (8/6/2017): Roger Waters

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #148 (8/6/17): Roger Waters

(aired Aug. 5, 2017 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C60YhWtS73Y)

click above to listen (audio only)

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of August 6, 2017.

Today, my friends, I go swimming in foul waters. Brackish waters. Roger Waters! The former head of Pink Floyd is now a solo artist with delusions of relevance.

Waters has long been critical of Israel’s position vis-à-vis the Palestinians. According to Mr. Stink Floyd, Israel is always the bad guy: occupying land, denying Palis of their rights, existing. And Waters has made no attempt to hide his contempt for the only democracy—and sometimes the only civilized society—in the Middle East.

Who can forget the 2010 Waters concert, where his animated set design included B-1 bombers dropping mogen davids? Or, worse, the 2013 concerts, where, instead of launching beachballs and t-shirts into the crowd, he sent an inflatable pig with a Jewish star on it hovering over bewildered baby boomers, who just wanted him to shut up and play “The Wall.” And that’s the problem in a nutshell—or a nutcase. People still want to hear his old music, so that gives Waters a huge platform for his babble.

I’ll even grant that he thinks he means well. To Roger Waters, Israel is a torture state, an oppressive regime that doesn’t let a bunch of poor, bedraggled Arabs blow themselves up in peace. He’s not against Israel, he says; he doesn’t hate Jews; he’s merely a rabid anti-fascist. Except for someone who supposedly has nothing against Hebes, Waters takes every opportunity to savage our homeland. He equates Benjamin Netanyahu’s acceptance of Jewish settlements on Jewish land with South Africa’s apartheid and feels both should be countered the same way. As such, Waters has become the poster boy for BDS. You know BDS: Bondage, Domination, and Stupidity. Or more officially: Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions against Israel. In other words, hurt Israel financially, and the Jews will just slink off into the Red Sea and let the Palestinians take over land that they’ll just turn back into desert.

At least BDS isn’t the usual Moslem protest. Instead of flying planes into office walls, they just want to build a commerce wall around Israel. As part of his responsibilities being the BDS butt boy, Roger Waters has called on other musicians to avoid Eretz Yisroel and cancel any concerts they have planned there. In response, Thom Yorke and Radiohead, bless their hearts, went to Tel Aviv and played their longest concert in eleven years. Now granted, even they equivocated: “Playing in a country isn’t the same as endorsing its government,” Yorke said in a statement. “We don’t endorse Netanyahu any more than Trump, but we still play in America.”

Well, okay, I’ll accept Radiohead’s defensive half over Pink Floyd’s ass whole. And lest we think Roger Waters is anything other than a Goebbels with a guitar, look no further than his interview with the blatantly anti-Israel CounterPunch magazine. Waters complained about the “extraordinarily powerful” Jewish lobby in America, which he says makes it hard for other musicians to back him in his fulminating foolishness. Waters also bitched about Israel’s “right-wing rabbinate” supposedly causing, quote “the ethnic cleansing and systematic racist apartheid Israeli regime.” Ethnic cleansing. Right. Because Arabs are systematically murdered by the Israeli government for no other reason than the towels on their heads. Sure. That they start riots, kill soldiers, and blow themselves to pieces in cafes has nothing to do with Israel’s distrust of their breed.

I’m not saying Israel is perfect, or that the Prime Minister is right about everything. After all, a couple of weeks ago I, myself, blasted Netanyahu for reneging on a plan to make a small bit of the Wailing Wall co-ed. But I also understand what Israel is up against: ongoing hostility from the very neighbors who should take in the miserable Palestinians but won’t. For 80 years, little Israel has made the best of a situation that the Arabs have consistently made worse.

And Roger Waters? He won’t play Milk and Honey City? Let’s take a look at the schedule for his 2002 world tour, shall we? We shall. Let’s see, he started in South Africa in February. Well, there’s a country with a glorious history of justice. Oh, and then he moved on to Chile—no problems there. Argentina, which at the time was run by that bastion of morality, Carlos Menem. Let’s see…Brazil (where I’m sure Waters felt at home with the other Nazis), Venezuela (ditto), Mexico (because drugs and rock and roll do mix), Japan—because hegemonic nationalism was never an issue there. Oh, and then it was off to Beirut. Uh huh. And Moscow and Warsaw and Munich and Frankfurt and Stuttgart and Oberhausen and Vienna. Because when have Germany and Austria ever had a race problem?

A million times I have said that Israel is a Jewish state, and it is also a teeny-weeny state, so if the Palestinians don’t like living there, they should gas up their camels and move to any other Arab country that would have them. Which is, of course, none. Which is the real tragedy that putzes like Roger Waters, Susan Sarandon, Amy Goodman, and Javier Bardem never acknowledge. There is no occupation. There is a miniscule Jewish country that every Arab wants to level, and when the Jews fight back, or get strategic with blockades, the lefties wring their hankies and blame the good guys.

If I sound especially grim and intolerant, understand that I am writing this only a couple of days after three Israelis were stabbed to death by Palestinians in the West Bank, and a day after Arabs attacked the Israeli embassy in Jordan. Why the violence? The Palis were pissed off because Israel put in metal detectors by the Temple Mount. That started a riot, and three Arabs were shot by Israeli police. Yes, using deadly force against rioters is unfortunate, but over metal detectors? Something designed to keep everybody safe no matter what the religion? When I go in an airport, I’ve gotta take off my coat, my shoes, my belt, my watch. It’s a pain in the ass, but do I riot? No. And let’s not forget the reason we all have to get naked at JFK in the first place: the Arabs!

So Roger Troubled Waters, feel free to stay away from Israel. Plenty of bands who have actually made good music over the past forty years will take your place. And if you want to be the change you hope to see in the world, howsabout looking in the mirror? You were in Pink Floyd where the lead songwriter turned into an insane recluse, and the guy who replaced him can’t get along with you. You’ve been married four times—and divorced four times. And you’re an atheist, so even God has washed his hands of you.

You are the Pooper at the Gates of Dumb. You are the Atom Heartless Motherfucker. You’re the Dark Side of the Moron. The Final Cunt. A More-Than-Momentary Lapse of Reason. All in all, you’re just another Prick in the Wailing Wall, and I wish you weren’t here.

This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches, in Great Neck, New York.

https://davelefkowitzwriting.wordpress.com/2021/03/05/non-fiction-essay-humorous-rabbi-sol-solomons-rabbinical-reflection-148-8-6-17-roger-waters/

Dave’s Gone By Skit: Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #147 (7/9/2017): WAILING WALL

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #147 (7/9/17): Wailing Wall

(Aired July 9, 2017 on Dave’s Gone By. https://davesgoneby.net/?p=25857. Youtube: https://youtu.be/r32HoGBoRYY)

Click above to listen (audio only)

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of July 9, 2017.

It is no secret that I love Israel. If I were to make a list of things I love, Israel would be number three, right after hot pastrami sandwiches and hot Natalie Portman. What can I say? I like sex and sandwiches. But Israel comes third—higher, even, than my wife and family, who come a distant fourth. And because I love Eretz Yisroel, I have railed many times against those who criticize the country for its treatment of the Palestinians—who do not belong IN Israel if they don’t follow the rules—and against those who bitch that America spends too much money on Israel. Because, you know, Israel’s Arab neighbors are such a friendly lot and have done so much good for us.

All that said, the past week has been a painful one for Zionistas like myself. First of all, we were reminded that Israeli politicians aren’t perfect when former Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, was released from prison after serving 16 months for taking bribes. Far be it from me to pass judgment on someone succumbing to the temptation of taking a money-stuffed envelope; heck, you could bribe ME with a stuffed cabbage. But we expect more of our leaders and doubly more of our Israeli leaders. If Israelis wanted to be saddled with a corrupt politician who cared only for himself, they’d move to New Jersey.

But Olmert is old news; the new news is the internal fight, in Jerusalem, over the Wailing Wall. See, everyone can pray at the wall of the great temple; they just can’t pray together. Men can daven in one section, and women can pray in a smaller area by the parking lot that’s also too close to the elevator and the ice machine.

A year and a half ago, secular leaders from the U.S. and Israel met with current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and begged him to create a nook by the Western Wall where gentlemen and ladies could pray together. Not the whole wall, just a portion that would no longer be segregated by sex or gender.

Feminists, liberals, reform Jews, reconstructionists, and deconstructionists like myself welcomed the compromise. It would keep Israel in the modern era and also make it easier for families and tourists to nag each other in the same place at the same time. So in 2017, who could object to this? The ultra-Orthodox, that’s who. This politically formidable and staunchly conservative group, who were key in keeping Netanyahu in power, will accept absolutely no compromises: women on one side, men on the other, Caitlin Jenner in the basement. The chassids forced Netanyahu to reneg on his deal, which infuriated all the moderates. As David Harris, executive director of the American Jewish Committee put it, “The Kotel belongs to all Jews worldwide, not to a self-appointed segment.”

To be fair, Jews everywhere count on the uber-Orthodox to keep the faith—literally. With so much assimilation and intermarriage and pressure to be a nationalist first and a Jew second—it’s kind of nice to have a bunch of yidlach still living in the 19th century, resisting modernity, and reminding us there’s a core of bible-based tenets that have carried us for 5,000 years. Let’s face it, the Amish are ridiculous, but they make the best pretzels and furniture, so we’d miss `em if they all packed up and moved to rumspringa.

But Israel was not created by America and the U.N. solely as a place for black hatters to study Talmud and suck down welfare. Eretz Yisroel was founded as a refuge for all Jews, blown sideways by the diaspora, decimated by the Holocaust, and crying for a safe homeland in the place the Torah says we came from. Among all those Jews, some work on Saturdays. Some like a ham sandwich. Some even intermarry or listen to Mannheim Steamroller. To disregard the lifestyles of these people as not being Jewish enough for Jerusalem smacks of reverse discrimination. Worse, American Jewish groups worry that Netanyahu’s bowing to a tiny segment of his population could drive a wedge between secular American Jews and Israel. Already, mega-philanthropist, Ike Fisher, a real-estate tycoon and AIPAC poobah, has suspended donations to the country because of what he calls this quotes “act of contempt.” That’s millions of dollars at stake, folks. Dollars that could be paving Israeli roads, providing health care, building me a satellite shul in Haifa—hey, a guy can dream, right?

So I must join with other Rabbis of my persuasion in objecting to this reversal by Prime Minister Netanyahu and his kowtowing to an obdurate faction: a group so right wing, they make the Tea Party look like SDS. And look, in the grand scheme of things, it’s really not such a big deal to ask men and women coming to the holiest place on earth, to stand a few yards away from each other. I mean, when you go to the gym, do you share the same locker room? No! Much as I would like to. But it’s the principle of the thing. Jews are not a monolith. We come in all shapes, sizes, colors, and curves. Favoring one sex over another, however subtly, is just not in keeping with the egalitarian spirit of a people who know all too much about arbitrary separation.

So Benjamin, Benyamin, Benjy, Benihana: do what’s right for Israel, rather than just for your career: let men and women pray together in Jerusalem. If God doesn’t like it, He can shake the wall and spit out the little pieces of paper. Or just move the wall to the U.S./Mexican border and kill two birds with one stone. Well, a thousand stones, but you get my drift.

This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches, in Great Neck, New York.

NON-FICTION – ESSAY – HUMOROUS: Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #147 (7/9/17): Wailing Wall

Dave’s Gone By #613 (7/8/2017): AIR JORDAN

Click above to listen to the episode (audio only).

Here is the 613th episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired on UNC Radio July 8, 2017. Info: davesgoneby.com.

Host: Dave Lefkowitz
Guests: actor Leslie Jordan (“Sordid Lives”), Dave’s wife Joyce

Featuring: Rabbi Sol Solomon chats with actor Leslie Jordan and offers his Rabbinical Reflection on the Wailing Wall controversy. Plus: Inside Broadway, Saturday Segues (Beck, In the News), Greeley Crimes & Old Times, Bob Dylan – Sooner & Later (secret archive)

00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN w/ Joyce (crispy christie, hair weaves)
00:18:00 GUEST: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews Leslie Jordan
00:52:30 SATURDAY SEGUE – Beck
01:20:30 Sponsors
01:24:30 GREELEY CRIMES & OLD TIMES
01:57:00 BOB DYLAN – Sooner & Later (secret archive)
02:23:00 INSIDE BROADWAY
02:54:30 Friends
03:08:30 RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #147 (Wailing Wall)
03:17:00 SATURDAY SEGUE – In the News
04:01:30 Weather & Thanks
04:06:30 DAVE GOES OUT

July 8, 2017 Playlist: “Profanity Prayers” (00:52:30), “Loser” (00:58:00), “Jack-Ass” (01:02:00) & “Country Down” (01:05:00; Beck). “The Man in Me” (02:01:00) & “Visions of Johanna (Take 7)” (02:10:00; Bob Dylan). “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues” (02:04:30; Judy Collins). “The Ladies are Singing Their Song” (02:49:00; Baby 1984 Broadway cast). “Wrestle with the Devil” (Whistle Down the Wind 1999 London cast). “He’s on the Beach” (03:23:00; Kirsty MacColl). “Spiderman” (03:26:30; Jill Sobule). “All in the Cause of Economy” (03:29:30; Half a Sixpence 1965 Broadway cast). “The Hot Dog Song” (03:31:30; They Might Be Giants). “Dear John” (04:08:00; Norah Jones).

(pictured: Leslie Jordan, Beck, Joey Chestnut, The Wailing Wall)

Dave’s Gone By Interview (5/13/2017): CARLYN MONTES DE OCA & Rabbi Sol Solomon

Click above to listen to the interview (audio only).

Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews wellness expert and former film editor Carlyn Montes de Oca

Topics include: veganism, Howard the Duck, Leonard Part 6, Bill Cosby, Israel, Mel Gibson, Dustin Hoffman, Haskell Wexler.

Segment airs May 13, 2017 as part of the “Dave’s Gone By” radio 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)2017 TotalTheater Productions.
More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com
More information about Rabbi Sol Solomon: http://www.shalomdammit.com

Dave’s Gone By Skit: Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #143 (1/8/2017): OBAMA AND THE U.N.

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #143 (1/8/17): Obama and the U.N.

Aired Jan. 7, 2017 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube: https://youtu.be/2EY_QSuKYss

click above to listen (audio only)

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of January 8, 2017.

Remember that old Billy Joel song, “Leave a Tender Moment Alone?” He was talking about how he couldn’t just enjoy a romantic interlude; he had to undercut the good feelings with a gripe or a joke. Of course, the joke was on him, since he chose Cutty Sark over Christie Brinkley. But the idea of not leaving well enough alone, of doing your best but then having the world remember your worst — that can be applied to our outgoing commander in chief, Barak Obama.

This is a man who took on a country that was in the toilet financially, emotionally, and seemingly irremediably. Eight years ago, you couldn’t pay the bills, you couldn’t get a job, you couldn’t sell a house, you couldn’t retire, you couldn’t visit New Orleans without scuba gear. Since President Obama has been in office, change has been slow, but to deny that an epic turn-around has occurred means that either you’re a retard or a Republican. On top of this, we killed Bin Laden, pointless laws about harmless crimes have been easing up, and faigelehs can marry whomever they want and, therefore, be as miserable as the rest of us. Through it all, Obama has maintained his poise, his cool, and his through-the-roof hipness quotient, kind of like yours truly.

And yet, mistakes were made. He rammed Obamacare up the American tush like a bad thermometer, giving people who never had health insurance coverage, but giving the rest of us a severe pain in the wallet. He completely screwed the pooch on managing the rise of ISIS, or ISIL, or Islamic Gee-Whiz, or whatever nickname the religion of peace is using these days.

But the most resistible piece de resistance of Obama’s legacy came right near the end. He and his minion, John Kerry, saw an opportunity to take a little dump on Israel. The United Nations, a toothless and brainless entity that has kept exactly zero wars from happening since its founding in 1945, voted last month to condemn Israel for settlement building. These houses, built on the West Bank and East Jerusalem, are controversial because the territory was annexed when Moses kicked Mohammed’s ass in the Six Day War. In other words, it’s been legitimate Israeli land for 50 years, but the Palestinians are still screaming for it like babies ripped from their mama’s boobies. And, of course, the greater Arab world agrees because any reason to hate Israel is fine by them. England agrees because they’re still pissed at Israel for pushing them off the sand. Other countries agree because anti-Semitism has proved a lot more durable than communism. But the United States, our friend and ally, has always stood with Eretz Yisroel against these bullies and bastards. Until December.

See, the left-wing liberals don’t like Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, because he cares more about the safety and security of his nation than playing diplomatic blind man’s bluff. And he says, “Why the hell should we stop building settlements on our own soil until we actually make a deal—God forbid—to give the land back?” If you’re gonna sell your house when you’re 80 years old, does that mean you can’t put in a new bathroom when you’re 58?

Like every American president, Obama wanted to be the one who made lasting peace in the Middle East. He yearned to be the great statesman who solved the Israeli-Palestinian problem. How do presidents do this? By asking Israel to suffer. Give up this, give up that, and maybe the Arabs will promise to leave you in peace. Give away land you won fair and square in 1948 and 1967 and 1973, and maybe the Palis will cease lobbing scud missiles at you. Maybe.

What do the Arabs have to give up? Ummm.. ummm.. oh yeah.. they must make the terribly difficult sacrifice of admitting that Israel exists. Oh, the poor dears. Even John Kerry, in his misguided, hot-headed speech after the UN vote, reminded the Arabs that if they want Israel to come back to the negotiating table, they have to call it “Israel” and not “that smudgy place next to Egypt on the map.” But shamefully, Kerry and Obama made the United States abstain from the UN condemnation vote, rather than veto it. It was Barry’s last dig at Benjy. His way of saying, “You won’t obey me? Fine, I’ll tell mommy, and you’ll get in trouble.” Netanyahu, hearing this, stuck his tongue out and replied, “Nyah-nyah, neener-neener. So you’re the big peacemaker with Muslims? Do they know that in Iraq, Iran, Syria, Sudan, Afghanistan, Yemen? Pick a country; there’s a genocide. But Israel is the bad guy for constructing houses and universities on its own terra firma.”

I have long said that when it comes to Jews and Palestinians, I am in favor of a two-state solution: the Jewish state of Israel, and an Arab state — in Lebanon, or Libya, or Lichtenstein or Mexico, or the North friggin’ Pole — anywhere except on the tiny sliver of real estate set aside for a Jewish homeland. To demand as a condition of peace that Israel chop itself up and bestow its backyard on its worst enemy is unfair, unsafe, and untenable. Suppose a fly is buzzing on a windowsill, and there’s a cobweb in the corner. Suppose the fly surrenders half its rightful window to the spider? How long you think that fly has before he’s an entrée in Charlotte’s web?

Now, America gives a lot of money to Israel and has throughout Obama’s term in office. The President has stood with Israel on other issues, and, in the main, relations remain beautifully strong and important. With Donald Trump coming into the White House, complete with an Orthodox Jewish son-in-law and a converted Jewish daughter, ties between the two nations are likely to get even cuddlier. So it’s just a disappointment that a mere month before he sneaks his last cigarette behind the oval office, Obama chose to snub the only democracy in the Middle East, and the only true friend America has anywhere in that part of the world — all in the name of appearances and the pie-in-the-sky lie of the two-state solution.

You know, the Democrats thought they had a two-state solution for the last election: New York and California. We all saw how that worked out.

This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches, in Great Neck, New York.

NON-FICTION – ESSAY – HUMOROUS: Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #143 (1/8/17) – Obama & the U.N.

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #131 (8/22/2015): Jimmy Carter

click above to listen (audio file only)

click above to listen (audio only)

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #131: Jimmy Carter

aired Aug. 22, 2015 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: https://youtu.be/ref1EipPIz8

Shalom, Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of August 23, 2015.

Two weeks ago, 90-year-old former president Jimmy Carter announced that he was battling an advanced stage of cancer—or, as Jewish people call it (whispers) cancer. Snipped from his liver was a tumor, but they also found badness elsewhere, which is not surprising since both of Carter’s parents, his two sisters, and his brother all died of pancreatic you-know-what.

Jimmy still has his 87-year-old wife, Rosalynn, who says she will be “right there with him” throughout his treatment. So will the town of Plains, Georgia, and a lot of Americans who remember Carter as one of the smartest, most honest, and most decent of men to occupy the oval office.

My feelings are a mite more mixed, however. Just because Carter was a mensch doesn’t mean he was a good President. In fact, up until George W. Bush, he was the worst Commander in Chief in a hundred years. And considering that crop included Richard Nixon and Warren G. Harding, that’s saying something.

In case you weren’t around from 1977 to 1981, what you missed was the recession, the oil crisis, the hostage crisis, the Cold War, and the confidence crisis. You know your President is a bona fide schlemiel when he has to go on television to tell everyone, “It’s not me, it’s you. Have a little faith.” Faith is hard to come by when you’re idling at the gas station for two hours on odd and even days, or when you can’t find a job to pay what gasoline costs, or you’re turning your thermostat to 50 because the Mullahs at OPEC want you to.

And speaking of the Arabs, the Carter years were also, of course, the years of the Ayatollah Khomeini. Fifty-two American hostages were taken prisoner as part of the Iranian Revolution. I suppose we should be grateful all the hostages survived. If they were captured now, Isis would cut their limbs off and rape the stumps. Still, these Americans remained in captivity for a year and a half, until Ronald Reagan made backroom deals to have them released on the first day of his presidency.

Until then, Jimmy Carter had three responses to the Iranian hostage crisis: He barricaded himself in his office for a hundred days, because as any eight-year-old knows, if you hide in the closet, nobody knows you’re there, and all the bad stuff goes away. His second tactic was to wear sweaters, because that’ll show those big bad oil sheiks we can live without heat. And finally, he sent helicopters to try a rescue mission—and they all crashed in the desert.

It was right about then America stopped laughing at Billy Carter and turned her woeful eyes on his older brother. If Watergate was a cancer on the Presidency, Jimmy Carter was a herpes all over it.

Still, lousy as Carter’s term was, I would still want to respect the man. After all, he brokered an impossible deal between Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat to create a small piece of peace in the Middle East. It truly was and remains an unbelievable, wonderful, and, alas, one-of-a-kind event in that region. And yet, can peanut boy leave well enough alone?

No, he spends the last few years bleeding through his sleeve for the poor, poor Palestinians. He writes a damn book with the inflammatory title, “Palestine: Peace, not Apartheid,” equating Israel with racist South Africa—even though the Palestinians are demanding land that belongs to Israel, land Israel annexed after being attacked, land that should be for Jews and Israeli citizens because the Arabs have a zillion other places to live.

Carter tries to play both sides of the fence. He sometimes makes nice-nice to Israel, saying he doesn’t support a boycott of the country over its policies. But then he turns around and chastises Eretz Yisroel for the way she conducts a war against an enemy that’s lobbing rockets in her backyard.

Like so many liberals and misinformed do-gooders, Jimmy Carter loves to invent a moral equivalency when there isn’t one. “Both Israel and Hamas are equally wrong and share equal blame,” which is not true; and let’s harp on Israel but be really gentle with the Arabs because we don’t want to make them mad. After all, Islam, the religion of peace, blows a ton of shit up, peacefully.

My main point is: considering his failure at almost every aspect of domestic and foreign leadership, and how he was humiliated by the Ayatollah—a guy who looked like Sean Connery wearing a microwavable heat wrap on his head—Jimmy Carter has as much business telling Israel what to do about the Muslims, as Michelle Duggar has telling the Pritzkers how to raise children. Of all people, Jimmy Carter should be the last one to believe you can reason with radicals, bargain with bullies, and mollify murderers.

After all, as we speak, Jimmy Carter’s body is being invaded by cancer cells that mean him only harm. Should the president’s doctor say, “Well, it’s not right to kill these invaders; it’s your fault for having a desirable host they want to live in. But tell you what. Why don’t you sacrifice so you can live in harmony with your cancer. Let them take your pancreas, your liver, your balls and your bones, and you can live side by side. And they promise never ever ever to move into your blood. Or least not for a week or two. Whaddya say?”

I say, “Jimmy Carter, you’ve done some good in this world, so I don’t wish you prolonged suffering. Still, if you had to get the big C, couldn’t you have gotten it in your mouth?”

This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches, in Great Neck, New York.

NON-FICTION – ESSAY – HUMOROUS: Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #131 (8/22/2015): JIMMY CARTER

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #120 (3/29/2015): Bibi’s Back

click above to listen (audio file)

Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #121 (3/29/2015): Bibi’s Back

aired March 28, 2015 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://youtu.be/t7yMCkes6B8

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of March 29, 2015.

Much to many people’s surprise, Benjamin Netanyahu was elected for a third term as the Prime Minister of Israel. Everyone assumed Labor would win. Everybody thought Netanyahu’s hard-line, status-quo policies were on the way out, and peaceniks were on the way in. Well, pre-April fool! Or technically, Adar fool, since it’s the Jewish calendar we’re dealing with.

But let’s be clear: for all Israel’s weariness of war, and for all the country’s gratitude to the United States for support, for money, for defense, for money, for money, for money . . . Israeli voters nevertheless sent a strong message and a mandate. The safety and security of Eretz Yisroel comes before everything else. It comes before friendship, before negotiations, before swallowing the latest Palestinian PR. They said to Netanyahu: “Give us strong borders and a promise that you won’t sell our country down the river—Jordan or Nile—and we’ll vote for you again.” He did, and they did.

Therefore, much to the chagrin of President Barak Oblivia, Bibi is back. And the shocking part is: he did it, not by kowtowing to the left, not by lying about the potential for peace with our sworn enemies, but by facing facts. The Arabs hate us, they won’t even recognize Israel on their maps or GPS systems, and any chance they get, they’d gladly send the Jews on a blind date with Robert Durst.

In his campaigning, Bibi went so far as to say that on his watch, there would never be a Palestinian state, which is harsh to hear even for a die-hard Zionist like yours truly. I’ve always said, I have no objection to a Palestinian state . . . in Algeria, in Curacao, maybe somewhere north of Omsk. The two-state solution, however, just seems like a disaster on the drawing board: unsafe, untenable, and you know it would just turn Jerusalem into a ping-pong ball. Filled with explosives.

Still, you’re not allowed to say that. If you’re a diplomat or a head of state, you’re supposed to make believe there’s always room for negotiation, that the Arabs really will lay down their arms and be all neighborly-like. Because, hey, they’ve been such good citizens in Yemen, Tunisia, Iraq, Syria, Libya – fill in the name of a country; the Muslims have probably terrorized it.

Our President won’t admit that, of course. It’s like he’s living in the movie “Candyman.” If you say the name “Moslem” five times to a camera lens, the bad guys’ evil will be unleashed. But here’s news, Mr. Pres, the bad genies are already out of the bottle, and if there’s one country on earth that knows not to trust the Bedouins, it’s their Semitic brethren.

Now, for the sake of diplomacy, Benjy Netanyahu has already gone back on his pre-election speechifying. He says he didn’t really mean there was no solution, that he’s always willing to schmooze with Abbas, and we should take his posturing with a grain of hummus. He’s a politician. He says what he has to to get what he wants. Once he’s got it, then he can be more truthful. Not completely truthful, but a percentage.

Meanwhile, the President, who has been going through an otherwise impressive stretch of lame-duck vigor, is pitching a hissy fit over Bibi’s bonanza. Obama wants to be the next Jimmy Carter, brokering the all-but-impossible peace deal that will cement his legacy for the ages. But lemme tell you, Barack, if you’re listening, which I know you are: with Israel and Egypt, Jimmy Carter did an amazing, impossible, fantastic thing. No one can take that away from him. But if you ask anybody about the legacy of James Earl Carter, 39th President, the response will be: hostages, oil shortage, inflation, Cold War, losing the Panama Canal, and a general American bad mood. In other word, that peanut-brained peanut farmer had as much business ruling the free world as Bill Cosby would have running a rape crisis center. So if Obama thinks he’s got anything to gain by twisting Israel’s arm into a phony truce with terrorists, he’s in for a rude awakening.

And yes, it was rude of Netanyahu to visit America and gab with Republicans when the White House all but begged him not to. But I repeat: maybe, just maybe, Bibi knows whereof he speaks when he cautions that trusting Iran to scrap its nuclear program is like trusting Bill Cosby to run a rape crisis center. I know, I already used that joke, but I’m hungry, and I want to finish this stupid essay and get to my brisket.

Folks in Washington are saying that relations between Israel and the United States are nearly at an all-time low. But I think—or at least, I hope—that’s overstating the case. Deep down, both American parties are very committed to Israel and realize how strategically important it is to the West, as well as its moral right to exist in a post-Holocaustal world. If Obama wants to rattle his saber—and you know, those people are blessed with long sabers—it could be the same kind of bluff and bluster Netanyahu was using to win his election. What actually goes on behind the scenes . . . that’s for statesmen to know and Aaron Sorkin to fabricate.

So I hope this is all just smoke and mishegoss, and that the Democrats—especially their presumptive 2016 candidat-ess—remember that what’s good for Auntie Israel is what’s most prudent for Uncle Sam. Or, put another way, don’t throw the Bibi out with the bathwater.

This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.

–> https://wp.me/pzvIo-20j

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #116 (2/8/2015): UC Dervish

click above to listen (audio file)

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #116 (2/8/2015): UC Dervish

(aired Feb. 7, 2015 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://youtu.be/jisuZvALtjg)

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of February 8th, 2015.

What is the purpose of education? In an idealistic sense, it is to broaden the mind, to open young people to a world greater than themselves that they have to wade into in order to become productive members of society. Or, more simply put: live and learn. But one can also say the purpose of education is to take a bunch of kids who are too stupid to be left alone during post-adolescence, and corral them all in one place before we inflict them willy-nilly upon the planet.

Well, you don’t get kids much dumber – or potentially dangerous – than the yutzes at UC Davis, the University of California, Davis. Pro-Palestinian, liberal wackjob teenagers, who comprise the rotting corpse that is the student body, voted to boycott Israel over the country’s treatment of the poor, poor Palis. In a vote that passed 8 to 2, these bleeding-heart buttheads recommended that the University divest itself of all business dealings with the land of milk and honey. The SJP, whose letters stand for Students for Justice in Palestine (though they could just as easily stand for Suck my Jewish Penis), the SJP cheered and waved Palestinian flags as the vote went down in their favor. Best of all, as Jewish and pro-Israel students shuffled out of the meeting hall, the Arab-sympathizers began chanting, “Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar.”

Now, where have we heard that poem before? Oh yeah, every time a Muslim with a grudge and an AK-47 decides to vent his spleen on a bunch of innocent civilians, those are the words: “Allahu Akbar.” It may sound like a religious prayer, but it’s more like a death yell. We heard it from Nidal Hasan, who killed 13 people in Fort Hood a few years ago, and we heard it last month, with a French accent, when the Koran Krazies lit into Charlie Hebdo for drawing cartoons.

I don’t need to tell you how I feel about the Israeli-Palestinian situation. But I will anyway. As I’ve said fifteen quadrillion times, Israel is a country — the size of a postage stamp — created after the Holocaust for Jewish people to finally have their own homeland. Anyone else on it either has to live by Israel’s rules or get the Allah out. And if you live in a country bordering Israel, or on land Israel gave back in the vain hope of trading acreage for peace, you better not be hostile, or we’re gonna stomp you like a wine glass at a wedding. But alas, up until that time, it’s the Arabs and their misguided sympathizers that do the violence, over and over again.

After the UC Davis vote – that the SJP won – the anti-Semites weren’t even satisfied with that! Two days later, someone painted swastikas on the walls of the Jewish fraternity, Alpha Epsilon Pi. (Actually, they should call it Aleph Epsom-Saltz Chai, but that’s for another time.)

It’s unclear whether this act was perpetrated by Arabs or just white kids goaded by all the latent Hebrewphobia stirred up by the vote. Either way, UC Davis has a nasty hurricane coming. I don’t mean a riot. I mean the whooshing sound of Jewish students exiting a place of higher learning that has sunk to a valley of lower squirming. It’s the sound of Jewish alumni divesting their donations and bequests from UCD and sending them to the UJA. It’s the whooshing sound of freshman applications – and application fees – being turned into paper kites because little Missy Horowitz and her 1500 SAT score now chooses to attend USC or UC Berkeley instead.

People at the University say the graffiti and the protests and threats are coming from outside sources and not the college kids themselves. How convenient. You light a torch and you wonder why someone behind you screams fire. Well, I’m screaming, too. Screaming at the retarded students of UC Davis who buy into this wahh-wahh, right-of-return, push-Israel-off-the-map garbage. And all this time, what’s been happening in the Arab world? More beheadings, hostages being burned alive, kidnapping and attacks – business as usual in the radical Muslim cyclone everywhere they are. And yet Israel is the bad guy.

Students of UC Davis, in my gradebook, you get an F for Flunk and a U for Uninformed. I realize you probably can’t spell, so I’ll put them together for ya: F. U.

This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.

–> https://davesgoneby.net/?p=27424

Dave’s Gone By Interview (1/10/2015): DAPHNA LEVY & Rabbi Sol Solomon

Click above to listen (audio only).

Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews life coach Daphna Levy

Topics include: Israel, Yom Kippur War, marriage, relationships, Tel Aviv.

Segment aired Jan. 10, 2015 as part of the “Dave’s Gone By” radio program hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.

More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com

More information about Rabbi Sol Solomon: http://www.shalomdammit.com

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #111 (11/23/2014): Murder in Jerusalem

click above to listen (audio file)

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #111 (11/23/2014): Murder in Jerusalem

aired Nov. 23, 2014 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://youtu.be/Nko93BwJGS0

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.

–> https://davesgoneby.net/?p=27484