I could have been killed at a San Francisco Seder. I read my Prayer of Gratitude for all who have helped the Jews, among
the greatest, I mentioned George W. Bush.
I barely caused a ripple. Were people giving me leeway? Has the fact
of Bush’s outspoken hostility to anti-Semitism and incomparable support for
Israel seeped into Lefty consciousness?
There were only two cogent opposition comments on my reading. One focused on the presumed identity of Lefty Fundamentalism and Judaism, the other questioned the President’s motives. The second was easily dismissed, and one supporter of my Prayer of Gratitude went so far as to suggest that President Bush (and others) now equate terrorism with anti-Semitism. So anti-terrorism has become a defense of Israel policy stance.
My father, a rabbi, viewed the Democratic Party and Judaism
as synonymous. My father left the country when Nixon was elected
president. I see that people, like Bill
Moyers, equate his Southern Baptism with the Democratic Party; a century long alliance that is just now dying. I see where that form of Lefty conflation with religion comes from and I discuss it
in Esoteric exoteric below.
-----------------------------------------
I chuckled at the Haggadah story of Jacob’s son, Joseph, who became a powerful advisor to the Pharaoh because he could read dreams. That may have been the tradition that Sigmund Freud was drawing on.