Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for September 20, 2025.
It is an honor, a privilege, and a joy to wish Duvid Lefkowitz mazel on his 1000th episode of the Dave’s Gone By radio-internet-podcast-Morse Code program. This would be a stunning achievement even if he didn’t spend three full hours a week talking his head off about absolutely nothing. But he manages this feat in a surprisingly non-annoying way, and has been doing so for 24 years.
I was there from the very beginning, you know. On the debut episode of Dave’s Gone By, the host brought me on to talk about breast-cancer awareness. I am aware of both breasts and cancer, so this was a natural fit for me. Despite complaints to the radio station about my calling breasts “boobs,” instead of—I dunno, hooters, jugs, melons, or love lumps—my segment was a hit. And it set the template for what would become my Rabbinical Reflections—mini-sermons about life, Judaism, politics, and my non-stop nagging prostate.
Today marks my 198th Rabbinical Reflection, and I thank Dave for allowing me this platform to expound upon my small world at large. It hasn’t been easy. My defense of Israel and Zionism has cost Dave a number of friends. They’re self-hating Jews and miserable anti-Semite bastards, but still, they’re missed. By the same token, I am appalled at the MAGA cancel culture going on right now, with late-night television hosts in the crosshairs of a despotic purge. I hate to say it, but the left-wingers were right: Columbia gadfly Mahmoud Khalil might be a lump of rancid hummus, but if he wasn’t breaking any laws, he had the right to peaceful protest, whether he was an American citizen or just a visa visitor. Now he’s being deported, and the government has gone from over-prosecuting “hate speech” to indirectly silencing anyone who doesn’t bow down to the orange clown.
So Dave, I celebrate your longevity and success. Such as it is. But I also urge you to speak your mind. You’re no Steven Colbert. You’re no Jimmy Kimmel. (If you were, let’s face it, you’d still be banging Sarah Silverman.) But you are you, an opinionated aging Jew with a moral sense of right and wrong and the linguistic skill to share your beliefs with those willing to listen. And if you’re sometimes reticent to tackle certain subjects and put your tuchas on the line for free expression, I am generally not. I promise, oh Captain, that as long as you keep allowing me to be part of your podosphere, whether doing interviews, Reflections, or baking shmura matzohs for you and your lovely missus, I will remain me. I will say what I feel needs saying, seriously or joking, and if ABC or Disney or Paramount-Skydance doesn’t like it, shtup `em. It’s not like they’re signing my checks. (Of course, if they do want to hire me, please forget everything I’ve said the last two minutes and God bless our stable-genius President.)
No matter what, though, I congratulate you, Dave, on giving the world 1000 examples of your humorosity. As you know, without comedy, irony, silliness, self-reflection, and a healthy b.s. meter—plus a little showbiz b.s.—this world would be a poorer place. Or just Newsmax.
I will close, Duvid, with a poem I have composed in your honor:
Hear, O Israel, about a Jewish guy
Who created a show called “Dave’s Gone By”
He tells of his bunions, his harelip, and phlegm
That turns off some people, but guess what? Fuck them!
He talks about theater, sometimes to excess
He jokes about life and how it’s a mess.
He lets me do interviews, though I’m controversial
He goes for three hours—with not one commercial!
From terrible puns to trivia quizzes
To bantering with his unseen mizzus,
To crafting a loathsome limerick rhyme
Dave makes shabbos a happier time.
So, mazel tov, Dave, on your 1000th show
May good fortune follow wherever you go.
Amen.
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 #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.
click above to watch episode #934click above to listen (audio only)
Here is the 934th episode of the long-running radio show/video podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired live on Facebook Saturday morning, March 9, 2024.
Featuring: StoryTime (“Good Job, Dennis”), Colorado Limerick of the Damned (Limon), Greeley Times, Dave’s Big Dictionary (levity).
00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN: Daylight Savings Time, Mike Tyson, Biden n’ Trump 01:09:00 GREELEY TIMES 01:23:00 STORYTIME: “Good Job, Dennis” 01:37:00 BUNION WATCH 01:43:00 DAVE’S BIG DICTIONARY: Levity 02:00:00 Friends of the Daverhood 02:13:00 COLORADO LIMERICK OF THE DAMNED (Limon) 02:18:00 DAVE GOES OUT
Segment aired Sept. 9, 2023 as part of the 910th episode 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)2023 TotalTheater Productions.
More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com
More about Rabbi Sol Solomon: http://www.shalomdammit.com.
RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #178 (12/31/2022): 2022 Farewell
airs Dec. 31, 2022 on Dave’s Gone By. Watch on youtube: https://youtu.be/iWVL1DmR0rQ
click above to watch click above to listen (audio only)
Shalom, Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon, founder and spiritual leader of Temple Sons of Bitches, with a Rabbinical Reflection for the end of the year 2022.
Although it’s dangerous to generalize — unless you’re a general, in which case it’s even more dangerous — I will generalize and say that overall, this was a better year than the last two… which isn’t saying much, of course. If you have lupus and you get over it, and then you get painful bunions — well, bunions is better. But it doesn’t mean you’re jumping for joy. You can’t jump for joy because your bunions are killing you.
But 2022 wasn’t bad. It was like a painless bunion. It looked worse than it felt. So you went to the gas pump, saw the price, and felt like you were back in 1979, only without the leisure suits. But high as prices got, with COVID and working from home, people still aren’t driving or flying — therefore not using much gasoline anyway. Groceries do cost more, but couldn’t our fat asses could do with less junk food? Heck, by spending more for less, we’re saving money on coronary bypass surgery.
Not that the health-insurance crisis has been solved. Or the immigration crisis. Or the mentally ill homeless crisis. Or the mentally ill former-president crisis. Or any of the wonderful miseries that governments promise to solve, try to hide, and then make worse.
2022 was the year that right-wing bible-thumping bastards got their way: they overturned fifty years of settled law and made abortion a state-by-state crapshoot again — because for Republicans, a human being is priceless as soon as it has a heartbeat and worthless as soon as it’s black or hispanic. So the unbiased, non-activist, hundred-percent secular Supreme Court, half-chosen by Donald Trump, suddenly decided to do God’s work and force women to bring their oopsies to term. But wouldn’t you know: voters in nearly every state sided with the women. Why? Because if you’ve ever been on an airplane with a crying infant, all you wanna do is kill that fucking thing.
And speaking of things that are short-lived: the G.O.P.’s victory lap barely lasted a season. When it came time for the midterm elections, their can’t-miss red wave crested, peaked, and nearly turned blue. Yes, for the next two years, they can make it even harder for President Biden to remember what he was gonna forget anyway. But they also can’t stalemate his every initiative. Thanks to the Republicans’ Handmaids Tale approach to society, Democrats held onto the Senate tighter than Elon Musk clings to a bad idea.
And speaking of bad ideas, 2022 was the year of the moron — from Kanye West repeating old cliches about Jews and money, to Kyrie Irving becoming the latest sports figure who’s angling for a second career as a black Israelite. As soon as basketball season ends, you’ll see Irving outside a Citibank in a long, colorful robe ,and he’ll be pointing to a drawing of a retarded lion with a mogen David on its ass.
Of course, not all black people this year were raving anti-Semites. Some were just needlessly violent. Like Will Smith, who hauled off and smacked Chris Rock at the Oscars for making a joke about Jada Pinkett’s haircut. I mean, come on! It’s not like he made fun of her pubes — which, I have on good authority, are actually less stubbly than the chia seeds on her head.
And before you get the wrong, racist idea, there were plenty of horrible, violent white people this year, too. We call them “Russians.” Before cancer and HaShem knows what else finally send him to that big gulag in the sky, Vladimir Putin wanted to make Russia Russia again. So he invaded Ukraine — which, to be honest, I always thought was Russia — but he invaded the Ukraine territory expecting it would collapse faster than a crypto portfolio. Instead, Ukranians held fast, bolstered by nothing more than heart, guts, faith, and five billion of dollars in American weaponry. I don’t mind because the President of the Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is not only a former TV comedian, but he’s a Yid! Who else would show up in Congress looking like he’d been jogging in Central Park? What, he couldn’t go to Fishbein’s in Cedarhurst and rent a suit? Two pairs of pants — free hemming!
Of course, here at home, we still have our own problems with savagery. Some non-binary numbnuts shot up a gay nightclub in Colorado Springs. A white supremacist killed 10 blacks in a Buffalo supermarket. A Walmart manager shot down 7 people in a store in Virginia. See? People think America is polarized and racially divided. But we have lunatics of all kinds murdering everybody. That’s democracy!
Still, in a good way, America has proved stubbornly resilient. The perpetrators of the Capitol Riots are having their day in court — and losing. Fringe candidates on both sides of the midterms learned that fringe looks great on talises, not so great on politicians. And when Facebook and Twitter got a little too “nanny state” with their censorship, users rebelled and went looking for new places to post their conspiracy theories, rants, and Sammy-Hagar-concert selfies. Elon Musk bought Twitter, fired half the work force, and quickly realized, “Wow, I could’ve fired two thirds of the workforce. I’m running a glorified blog here.”
But it would not be fair to close out this “could’ve been worse” year without mentioning some of the worst things that did happen: the passings of notables in 2022.
We start with the Queen, who died at 96
and Christine McVie, who was so much better than Stevie Nicks
We lost Luis and Bob from Sesame Street
And William Hurt, who hurt the women he beat
Angela Lansbury, our beloved Jessica Fletcher
And Louise Fletcher, whose Nurse Ratched was a kvetcher.
We lost Sidney Poitier, the epitome of class
And Olivia Newton John, that fine piece of talent.
Goodbye Ronnie Spector, who sang so well
And I sure hope that Meat Loaf is well out of hell.
Bob Saget, and Gallagher are pushing up daisies
As are Gilbert and Louis Anderson. God — stop taking our crazies.
We celebrate these giants, their work and their lives
like Jerry Lee Lewis and his underage wives.
We lost Ray Liotta, goodfella and true
and Cheers’ Kirstie Alley, we’re cheering for you.
Peter Bogdanovich made his last picture show
And poor Aaron Carter’s done his last line of blow.
Ivan Reitman’s directed his very last smash
Farewell Sally Kellerman: who showed her bush in M*A*S*H!
Madeline Albright has, sadly, gone dark
And we won’t hear Vin Scully call games from the park.
And turning to Russia, our hearts are so heavy
Gorbachev: my budu skuchat’ po tebe.
To these folks and more we bid our adieus
But I wish only happiness for all of youze.
May 2023 delight us and please us
without any wars or infectious diseas-us
And 12 months from now, may all of us say:
“Compared to most years, that one was okay.”
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 #874click above to listen (audio only)
Here is the 874th episode of the long-running radio show/video podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired live on Facebook, Saturday morning, Dec. 24, 2022. Info: davesgoneby.com.
Featuring: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews former politician Debbie Peterson; Greeley Crimes & Old Times; Colorado Limerick of the Damned (Rifle); Today/Yesterday Trivia Quiz (w/ Debbie Peterson, Leslie (Hoban) Blake, Vicki Quade).
00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN w/ Joyce (sporadics, Zelenskyy) 00:27:00 GUEST: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews Debbie Peterson 01:00:30 TODAY/YESTERDAY TRIVIA QUIZ (Dec. 24 w/ Debbie Peterson, Vicki Quade, Leslie (Hoban) Blake) 02:08:00 DAVE GOES FURTHER IN (tea, rabbit) 02:26:30 GREELEY CRIMES & OLD TIMES 02:52:30 COLORADO LIMERICK OF THE DAMNED (Rifle, CO) 02:58:30 Friends of the Daverhood 03:04:30 DAVE GOES OUT
RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #173 (12/31/2021): 2021 Farewell
aired Dec. 25, 2021 on Dave’s Gone By. Watch on youtube: https://youtu.be/FnMeyeZ9K3Q
Shalom, Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon, founder and spiritual leader of Temple Sons of Bitches, with a Rabbinical Reflection for the end of the year 2021 AD — After Delta.
Well, we’re not really “after delta,” of course. We’re just discussing it less because another variant of the coronavirus came along to goose up the news cycle. Honestly, I think the whole Omicron thing was started by Hilaria Baldwin just to get her husband’s name off the front page.
But my friends, it’s certainly been a year. Again. You know, there’s something to be said for pessimism; at least you’re not disappointed when everything goes to shit. So in 2020, we made it through the first wave of the pandemic: the triage tents, the refrigerator trucks, the zoom fatigue, the hidden charges for InstaCart deliveries. And with 2020 hindsight, the vaccines came — hallelujah! The government went to Big Pharma with a blank check and said, “Do something.” And they did! By new year’s, all these old people who were dying of Covid in nursing homes could get vaxxed and go back to dying of the flu.
We all breathed a sigh of relief when, only months after the explosion of COVID, Pfizer, Moderna, and one-shot/blood-clot Johnson & Johnson proved that modern medicine could change the game. Unfortunately, viruses are like robocallers. If you block your number in the morning, they just find another sequence of digits to call you again at dinner. So Covid morphed into Delta, which spun into the more contagious but milder Omicron. By the time we get to Upsilon, everyone will have it, but it’ll just be constipation and hangnail.
Still, we must be careful — no matter how careful we are! Double-masked, tripled-vaxxed, quadruple-sanitized — the CDC messaging is still: go on with your normal life, but don’t do anything normal. As we end the annum, Broadway shows are closing, sports are canceling, hospitals are filling… The Rockettes even postponed their Christmas show till after Christmas. Now it’ll be the Lent Spectacular.
So 2021 was really the year to get our hopes down. In New York we looked to the Cuomo Brothers for inspirational pep talks, which was like asking the New York Jets for tips on scoring touchdowns. We looked to reunions of Friends and Sex and the City for nostalgia, only to realize that women who are no longer cute are immediately irritating, and that “just like that,” Chris Noth is a rapist.
We heard right-wing Republicans decrying vaccine mandates because the government has no right to tell them what medicine to put in their bodies. Sounds reasonable…until you remember these same people want to tell women what to do with their bodies. And now with the homemaker harpy, the college rapist, and the pubic-hair schvartze leading the Supreme Court, they may get their chance.
Not that America needs even more polarization. On January 6th, we realized half the country still believes Donald Trump won the election, that COVID is just the flu, and that country music is listenable. As scary as it was to see white people rioting, it was even creepier to see a guy painted blue and wearing a viking helmet storming the halls of Congress. Doesn’t he know the clowns in Congress don’t need makeup?
So we distracted ourselves from the yecch of the year by watching unbelievably rich entrepreneurs…and William Shatner…go into space. They didn’t visit the moon or anything, they just went up in the air. Big whoop. That’s like going to a multiplex and telling the ticket guy, “No, thanks. I’m just here to enjoy the lobby.”
At least people started going to the movies again — well, superhero movies; the rest they’re watching on TV because that’s the only pastime people can afford. Between health insurance and home prices, you either have to sell an organ to buy a house or sell a house to buy an organ. And then you have to rent the organ out just to buy groceries.
But at least 2021 was instructional; we learned something. We learned that just because you get rid of a bad president doesn’t mean the next president will be good. Joe Biden, who always looks one step away from competence and two steps away from assisted living, has a knack for finding the failure in success. He pulls us out of Afghanistan — and we look like the Keystone Kops in the process. Biden signs a trillion-dollar bill to revamp America’s infrastructure, but his two-trillion-dollar domestic bill gets torpedoed by one centrist Democrat. Biden tries to reverse Trump’s anti-immigration policies, and so — big shock — thousands of illegals we can’t handle swarm to the border.
President Biden did keep the economy going during COVID with numbers for both Wall Street and unemployment remarkably good. But that’s because people are working to shell out four dollars for gas and ten dollars for bread. And that’s if the bread makes it to the supermarket in the first place. Turns out a supply chain is only as good as its weakest link, and this year that link was the Suez Canal, where the good ship Ever Given got stuck like an impacted bowel movement.
The whole year 2021 felt like the Ever Given; each time we’d pivot with hope to a different direction, we’d hit another sandbar. Tokyo held an Olympics…that nobody went to, apart from a couple of US athletes who got the twisties and tanked. Radical Democrats called for defunding the police — and then backtracked when rampant crime made their cities more dangerous than a Travis Scott concert. R. Kelly went to prison, presumably filling the space just vacated by Bill Cosby. Britney Spears finally became a legal adult — just in time to join AARP.
And then race. You had black people getting angry because the jury found Kyle Rittenhouse not guilty — for killing two white guys. And when policeman Derek Chauvin was found guilty for suffocating George Floyd, all America heaved a sigh of relief. They even put up a statue of Floyd in a Manhattan Park, and it was quickly defaced by an unemployed actor. Sorry, that was redundant; an actor. But how dare he? After all, if we’re pulling down monuments of Civil War Generals and Founding-Father slaveholders, why not replace them with a counterfeiting drug addict whose biggest life accomplishment was holding a pistol to a woman’s stomach during a home invasion? Then again, when you come right down to it: whether the statue in the park is of Abraham Lincoln or Robert E. Lee, it’s still just a pigeon toilet.
But before we flush this year down the crapper, we should take a moment to remember some of the people we wish were still afloat in 2022:
Farewell Willard Scott — whose hundredth won’t be sponsored by Smuckers
And bell hooks and Anne Rice, you fine literary motherfuckers
We’ll miss Charlie Watts and his incredible drumming
Mort Sahl and Norm Macdonald, who kept the comedy coming
Goodbye Cicely Tyson, God finally took her
And old Cloris Leachman — you know: Frau Blucher.
We lost Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s Coney Island of the Mind
And also Don Everly, who never left his brother’s behind
Melvin Van Peebles made films that were funky
Mike Nesmith brought street cred to being a Monkee
Leon Spinks and Marvin Hagler, who never took a dive
And broadcaster Larry King — Not Live
Farewell Roger Mudd, and thanks for the news
And Shalom, Ed Asner — you were good for the Jews
We lost Mod Squad’s Link, and that’s a stone bummer
And God roto-rooted old Christopher Plummer
Farewell Nanci Griffith who sang with her soul
And two decent statesmen, Mondale and Dole
Shalom, Jackie Mason, and thanks for the funny
Bye bye Bernie Madoff: shtup you and your money
Phil Spector’s bad deeds are interred with his bones
And Tawny Kitaen — I wish she had clones
We lost Ned Beatty, who, like a pig, did squeal
And how about a Mister Mic-drop for Ron Popeil?
And last but not least, Stephen Sondheim made his mark
with Gypsy and Sweeney and Sunday in the Park
But just when these deaths make it seem dark as night
Remember with joy: there’s still Betty White!
And so my friends, my enemies, as we shuffle off the mortal coil of Covicious 2021 into Omicrazy 2022, I can only wish you all healthier, happier times; hope when things seem hopeless, and hot pastrami because…well, it’s hot pastrami.
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches, in Great Neck, New York. Shana Tovah, be glad this one’s ovah.
(Rabbi Sol Solomon’s 165th Rabbinical Reflection aired Jan. 16, 2021 as part of the Dave’s Gone By show. watch video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Y0DFpad8eto).
Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of January 17th, 2021.
Can we speak freely? No, I mean, can we speak, freely? I don’t like the “Stop the Steal” mishegoss any more than you do, and I think the nudniks who stormed the Capitol building deserve the strongest punishment. Like fines, imprisonment, or being trapped in an elevator with Jeanine Pirro in your left ear and Nancy Grace in your right. And they’re both using megaphones. And guess what? They’re angry.
But back to the point: we’ve got a paranoid President who is circling the drain because he’s terrified of being called the one thing he is–at least in terms of the 2020 election–a Loser. Not with Israel and the Middle East; he’s a winner there. Not with Wall Street and big business; he’s a Superman there. And, up till March of last year, not with the economy, which had low unemployment, tons of job growth, and a gung-ho attitude.
But COVID knocked him down, as it did 350,000 of his countrymen. Trump’s rash pronouncements and veiled racial signaling appealed to America’s baser instincts, so although 75 million people voted for him, 80 million didn’t. He lost. Deal with it. I wish he would. I wish his Confederate flag-waving acolytes would. I wish the folks on QAnon would get a Clue-Anon.
However, just before the riots, the President gave a speech where he dubbed the elections fraudulent, the news fake, and the elections rigged by Big Tech. He called on Congress to recount everything, and he said, and I quote, “I know that everyone will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard,” unquote. He also praised the size of the crowd–he does love a big crowd–and urged them to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue. As a protest. As a way for those who legitimately felt the election was stolen to make their voices heard.
For this, Donald Trump was again impeached. For spinning a false narrative, yes, about the election, but moreover for inciting the crowd to riot. “Something is wrong here, really wrong,” he said, “and we fight. We fight like hell, because if you don’t, you’re not going to have a country anymore.” You know what that’s called? Rhetoric. Not insurrection, not incitement to anarchy. It’s a politician telling his believers not to give up hope and to channel their rage into action. If some followers in buffalo skins and football-fan camouflage took that to mean storm the government, break stuff and take stuff, that’s on them. At the very least it’s trespassing; at most it’s sedition.
The Democrats are accusing the President of having a signed First Sedition. True, he wound the bozos up, but he didn’t set them loose, any more than the makers of Cabbage Patch dolls doing TV commercials telling parents “buy these horrible things for your even-more-horrible children,” caused riots in Kmart.
But pushing past impeachment and trying to remove Donald Trump from office–which will happen two weeks after he’s already been removed from office–my problem is with the censoring of free speech. President Trump has been banned, permanently, from Twitter. Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram have deleted him for however long they choose, and YouTube has pulled his channel down. Far more worrisome, they’re doing the same for all his nutty followers who now have no place to share their cries of “fraud!” and “conspiracy!” Google, Apple, and Amazon have all removed the social-media site Parler, because too many kooks were spoiling the broth.
Now, these are private companies–sort of–so their CEOs have the right to monitor everything that goes on them. If you own a restaurant, you can’t discriminate against your customers based on race or gender, but you can still demand, “No shirt, no shoes, no service.” I’ve thrown people out of my synagogue for wearing dirty tallises. Well, they weren’t wearing anything underneath them, but that’s neither here nor there.
The point is we are on a very slippery slope when our biggest purveyors of public palaver start telling us, “Well, you’re allowed to post hopeful things about Joe Biden’s inauguration, but you can’t write anything questioning the legitimacy of his victory.” “You’re allowed to condemn the violent idiots rioting in Nancy Pelosi’s office, but don’t you dare encourage the peaceful idiots to keep marching two blocks away.”
When I was a little Rabbi, a Rabbette, I was taught three things you couldn’t do: yell fire in a crowded shul, slander someone, or be so obscene that a reasonable person would go, “dude, I’m as kinky as the next fetishist, that’s messed up.” But no law says you can’t lie. That’s not even one of the Ten Commandments. Wait, let me make sure (thinks and counts), nope. False witness is different. And there’s certainly nothing in there about not sharing things that you actually believe are true–even if there’s overwhelming evidence they’re false.
So what happens when you censor folks on the fringe? You make them angrier, you drive them deeper underground, and now it gets harder to track them to make sure they don’t escalate from angry TikTok videos to kidnapping Ilhan Omar. You also cause everyone else to self-censor. “Hmm, maybe I better not post this because they’ll just take it down anyway. Maybe I better not think this, because then I’ll waste time posting it, because they’re just gonna take it down anyway.”
I am of the mind that you say what you have to say, and if I hate it, I get to say what I have to say back at you, louder. The problem in 1925 was not that Hitler published Mein Kampf; it’s that not enough people read it and went, “ooh, this guy’s bonkers and maybe dangerous.” The problem is not that right-wing Republicans are posting that the elections were a fraud; it’s that they believe it and won’t be de-convinced no matter the proof. Still, prohibiting them from non-violent, non-slanderous, non-obscene communication is non-okay.
Big Brother is already watching us from every stop light, website, Smart TV, closed-circuit camera, and GPS system. You can’t sneeze without someone in the CIA muttering gezundheit. Must we have social-media platforms that restrict content based on alternative narratives? Do we really want to side with Cardinal Maculani over Galileo? With Anthony Comstock over James Joyce? With Ayatollah Khomeini over Salman Rushdie?
In my version of reality, Donald Trump was an okay president who made just enough poor decisions to lose the election. In your version of reality (points), Donald Trump was a terrible president who should have been impeached before he was elected. Or in your version of reality (points elsewhere), Donald Trump was a great president who got cheated out of a second term. Can’t we all just not get along? Tolerating stupidity is one of the great virtues of our nation. That and cream soda. What, you disagree? That’s your right.
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.
click above to watch the episode.click above to listen to the episode (audio only)
Here is the 781st episode of the long-running radio show/podcast Dave’s Gone By, which aired live on Facebook Saturday morning, Jan. 16, 2021. More info: davesgoneby.com.
Guests: comedian Shawn Wickens, theater critics Leslie (Hoban) Blake and David Sheward
Featuring: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews comedian Shawn Wickens and offers his Rabbinical Reflection on Free Speech; Inside Broadway; Greeley Crimes & Old Times; Colorado Limerick of the Damned (Cascade); Today/Yesterday theater quiz (Jan. 16) with Leslie (Hoban) Blake and David Sheward.
00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN w/ Joyce (clerk typist, approaching 57) 00:30:00 GUEST: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews Shawn Wickens 01:16:30 TODAY/YESTERDAY Trivia Quiz (Jan. 16 w/ Leslie (Hoban) Blake & David Sheward) 02:39:00 GREELEY CRIMES & OLD TIMES 02:50:00 INSIDE BROADWAY 03:01:30 RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #165 (Free Speech) 03:13:30 Friends of the Daverhood 03:19:00 DAVE GOES FURTHER IN (Carvel) 03:25:00 COLORADO LIMERICK OF THE DAMNED (Cascade) 03:26:30 DAVE GOES OUT
click above to watch the episode.click above to listen to the episode (audio only)
Here is the 780th episode of the long-running radio show/podcast Dave’s Gone By, which aired live on Facebook, Saturday morning Jan. 9, 2021. Info: davesgoneby.com.
Guests: theater director Woodie King, Jr., theater critic David Sheward, Dave’s wife Joyce
Note: Farewell to our Friend of the Daverhood, Woodie King, Jr., who passed Jan. 29, 2026 at age 88.
Featuring: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews director Woodie King, Jr.; Greeley Crimes & Old Times; Colorado Limerick of the Damned (Yellow Jacket); Dave Says Bye (Uncle Sonny); Today/Yesterday trivia quiz (Jan. 9).
00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN w/ Joyce 00:04:00 DAVE SAYS BYE (Uncle Sonny Brower) 00:45:00 INSIDE BROADWAY 00:59:00 GUEST: Rabbi Sol Solomon interview Woodie King, Jr. 01:46:00 TODAY/YESTERDAY (Jan. 9 w/ David Sheward) 02:29:00 DAVE GOES OFF (Capitol Chaos and Bravo Biden) 02:40:30 GREELEY CRIMES & OLD TIMES 03:03:30 Friends of the Daverhood 03:12:00 COLORADO LIMERICK OF THE DAMNED (Yellow Jacket) 03:15:30 DAVE GOES OUT
Jan. 9, 2021 Playlist: “Wind Beneath My Wings” (00:57:30; Marion Ramsey).
