Those Zionist Neo-cons
A piece definitely worth reading today:
You Must be Likud! Anti-Jewish rhetoric infects the West.
This article shows how Anti-Jewish rhetoric has now become acceptable and somewhat normal (sadly) in political discourse. There are so many myths out there, and most of them are so bizarre I simply don’t know how they became acceptable in the mainstream.
Oh, and the Likud doesn’t control any American politicians for that matter.
What is more important to you: the security of Israel, or keeping gay people from getting health insurance for their partners?
What if you were a reclusive Grand Rabbi, seemingly with an aversion to sunlight? Which issue would lure you from your darkened crypt?
The Massachusetts Family Institute, part of The Alliance for Marriage, is trying
to deny equal rights to gay people in Massachusetts.
They claim that they are trying to protect and preserve the sanctity of marriage
and the family.
They are lying.
One of the members of The MFI / AFM is The Grand Rabbi Ira Korff, Chaplain for
the City of Boston.
The title of ”Grand Rabbi” is neither elected nor appointed– it is inherited.
The Jewish community didn’t choose Ira Korff.
He is lying.
For almost two years, I worked for Ira Korff at The Jewish Advocate newspaper in
Boston.
Last year, within the space of about four months, my mother had congestive heart
failure, my grandmother died, and I was diagnosed with cancer.
I spoke to Ira Korff and told him I was having another operation in a week, and
my mother was having an operation the week after that.
I asked Ira Korff if I could take an unpaid medical leave for a month to protect
and preserve my family and my health.
Grand Rabbi Ira Korff, Chaplain of the City of Boston, champion for the
preservation and protection of the family, said “No.”
He told me that in this economy he could replace me quickly for less money.
In their crusade against gay people, Ira Korff and The Massachusetts Family
Institute have joined forces with the leadership of The Islamic Society of
North America– supporters of Hamas and of Al Queda. Terrorists.
The image of same-sex couples at the altar together is more horrific to Ira
Korff than people flinging themselves from the windows of the burning World
Trade Center.
Ira Korff is more afraid of seeing gay people happily married than he is of
seeing his own brethren lying mangled and bloody in the streets of Israel.
Ira Korff is also the Honorary Consulate to Austria. The post had been discarded
in disgust following the election of a Nazi-sympathizer as Chancellor of
Austria. Ira Korff jumped at the chance to take the unwanted “honorary”
position on the bones of our martyred fathers.
He rubs shoulders with terrorists and Nazis.
These so-called protectors of the family and preservers of marriage are liars
and frauds and hypocrites.
They are people like Ira Korff, whose newspaper I know (and can prove) has been
lying for years about the circulation figures upon which it bases its
advertising rates.
Liars. Frauds. Hypocrites.
What Ira Korff and his fellow travelers are doing now has all been done before,
and it started with laws about who was allowed to marry whom.
Why would someone want to exchange their yellow star for a swastika?
We need
everyone to speak up and say, with one voice, “Never Again!”
Comment by Rev. Ian Brumberger — 5/23/2004 @ 9:49 pm
No idea. Why does Brumberger have the title “Rev.”?
Also, the Massachusetts Family Institute is I believe the same organization Mr. Rudnick worked for after Brandeis. I guess his job was to prevent gay marriage from ever being legal in Massachusetts- we see how successful THAT was.
Comment by Stephen Silver — 5/28/2004 @ 12:27 am
beats me.
As for Rudnick’s group, they claim to still be in action or something like that. I dunno, we don’t get any news about it here in Ohio. Didn’t he leave for law school or something anyway?
Comment by jaws — 5/28/2004 @ 12:53 am
To answer Ms. Silver’s question, “Why does Brumberger have the title “Rev.”
How / why does a Jew become a Reverend?
The title of “Rabbi” in the Jewish faith means “Teacher.”
There is a great deal of prestige and well earned pride that goes along with that title. Teaching is a noble profession, and to be a teacher usually requires an audience of students. I do not feel that I have earned the right to the title of Rabbi, and despite being a Jewish Humanist, I won’t claim I have a right to it.
However, if I wanted to precede the word “Rabbi” with the word “Grand,” I would be entitled, because anyone can become a Grand Rabbi (Rebbe) simply by declaring themselves one.
At least, that is what one Grand Rabbi told me– “the only requirement to be a Grand Rabbi is to be a mensch.” (Loosely translated, “a good person.)
However, with no disrespect intended towards the non-Jewish folk, there are no set criteria or “controlling authority” governing the requirements and duties of a Reverend or Minister, outside those defined by individual houses of worship.
There are good priests and bad priests. There are good rabbis and bad rabbis. And there are good reverends and bad reverends.
And not all the bad reverends get houses dropped on them.
Having a religious title does not automatically mark you as “good” or even qualified. It simply marks you as belonging to a class of people with special rights and privileges that everyone should have anyway (except for the special parking spaces at hospitals.)
The only thing you need to become a Reverend is a church with qualifications that you fit, and that is willing to ordain you.
Having a plastic wallet card helps.
I found one.
Ta Da! I’m a Reverend!
So, I guess I am a Jewish Humanist Reverend, if that answers your question.
Here’s an interesting side note.
Soon after Count Korffula told me that I was too valuable an employee to be
allowed to take a medical leave without his having to fire me, I went to New York to be with my mother before her operation.
After her operation, there were major complications with her surgery, but I wasn’t allowed to see her because she was still in post-op recovery. Not even close family are allowed in “Post-Op.”
But doctors and clergy are allowed to be in post-op recovery, so I was allowed to see her.
Also, as a member of the clergy, I wasn’t restricted to regular visiting hours, although out of courtesy to the staff, I adhered to them anyway.
During the month my mother spent on a respirator in the Intensive Care Unit (a month that “protector and preserver of the family” Grand Rabbi Ira Korff compassionately sought to deny me) I used my special “clergy privilege” maybe twice, when things looked particularly bad.
She almost died several times during that month, and I was glad I could be there. But The Grand One had insisted I couldn’t be with my mother, because he needed me at The Jewish Advocate for the High Holiday season, when the newspaper’s circulation miraculously doubles each year, at the same time the post office is determing the figures that The Jewish Advocate uses to justify their advertising rates. (I can tell anyone who is interested how they can verify that information on their own using public documents.)
The disgusting thing was that every privilege I was accorded as a
clergyman would have been granted at any hospital, even if the patient was not my mother. Even if the patient was not related to me. Even if the patient was a stranger to me. But not to the gay partner of a patient.
If I were gay, and the person in the hospital were my partner, most
hospitals would have denied me any visitation at all, let alone the “special visitation” afforded to clergy.
And where it gets really disgusting, is that Ira Korff and his fellow travelers who want only to “protect marriage,” are seeking to deny that most simple, harmless, and humane right to gay couples, even if they have a medical proxy agreement.
As a member of the clergy I have hospital visitation rights above and beyond those of anyone else, aside from a doctor. Yet those who claim to be crusading for goodness and allegedly doing God’s will are denying ANY visitation rights to gay people at all.
Their only possible motivation is cruelty.
They aren’t “defending” anything.
They aren’t “compassionate.”
They are cruel destroyers, acting out of ignorance, bigotry and hatred. Any cynical pretense they claim to compassion and tolerance is an insult to those who have a heart or a conscience.
They are liars. Frauds. Hypocrites.
Comment by Rev. Ian Brumberger — 6/8/2004 @ 12:15 pm
I’m sorry, I should have said, “Mr. Silver,” not “Ms. Silver.”
Comment by Rev. Ian Brumberger — 6/8/2004 @ 12:20 pm
Is John Kerry the most liberal senator?
John Kerry is NOT most liberal senator.
I repeat:
John F. Kerry is NOT the most liberal senator.
http://mostliberalsenator.blogspot.com
most liberal senator
Comment by Rev. Ian Brumberger — 10/15/2004 @ 9:21 am
I was lucky enough to have the, “good fortune”, to speak to Ira Korff’s number 2 in command this evening on the phone and all I can say is WOW! What a piece of $h#+!!! Granted, I was calling for an organization raising money in our communities across the Commonwealth. Admittedly, I didn’t know who this Ira person was and just simply asked to speak with Mr. Korff. This pompous asshole who answers his phone laughed when I asked to speak with good ol’ Ira as if he were as important as Warren Buffett or Bill Gates. Then he tells me that Ira Korff is the Grand Rabbi of Boston and the HE would NEVER be available to speak with the like of me. On top of that, he told me they would NEVER dream of giving money to us. Believe me when I say this organization I raise $$ for is one of quality and thousands of residents across the state donate to us annually. You should have heard this henchman of Ira’s squirming on the other end of the phone. Once I found out who I was talking to I became a little more persistant realizing that with their tax exempt status, these people had a mountain of disposable cash to potentially donate from. All we were asking for was a mere $35. This guy gave a million reasons why he would never give a dime. Now I hate stereotypes as much as the next guy, BUT their ongoing arguements made it difficult to not want to go there in my mind…but needless to say I held my tongue. But God damn, what a fuckin’ tight-wad. Who needs his fucking money anyway? Gimme a break Ira. Crawl back under your rock you worm!!!!
Comment by gimme a break Ira and Co. — 3/1/2008 @ 1:37 am