October 20, 2005
Sen. Clinton Talks Forgiveness in L.A.
U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton spoke about forgiveness at Yom Kippur services in Beverly Hills, closing out what became a safe and reflective High Holidays for the Southern California Jewish community.
“Forgiveness has little or nothing to do with fairness,” Clinton said in a 23-minute speech at Temple of the Arts in Beverly Hills. “Life is never fair. It is full of things that can never be excused.”
The New York Democrat and possible 2008 presidential candidate spoke at the old Wilshire Theatre on Wilshire Boulevard, which Temple of the Arts has purchased to transform into its permanent home.
Though she spoke about forgiveness, the senator did not specifically address the White House adultery of her husband, former President Bill Clinton. Instead, she discussed broad religious themes of forgiveness and also how impressed she was at the 1994 inauguration of South African President Nelson Mandela, where the longtime political prisoner gave prominent seating to three guards who treated him compassionately. “Three of his former jailers,” she said.
“I owe a great deal, in my own thinking about forgiveness, to the tradition that you are celebrating and honoring today,” she said to a filled theater with more than 1,900 people. “It just struck me how fortunate we are to have an opportunity to take time out as you are doing, here on Yom Kippur, to think of the large issues that really matter in life.”
“Forgiveness is not a luxury. It’s a responsibility in the personal and the public life,” Clinton said. “Each year, going back to Leviticus, the Jewish people have recognized both the psychological and theological power of atonement and forgiveness.”
When she finished, Temple of the Arts Rabbi David Baron kissed the senator on the cheek and said Clinton’s words were appreciated by, “a couple of thousand very opinionated and very hungry Jewish people.”
Clinton also was in town to do some Hollywood fundraising, and among those listening to the senator’s sermon was CNN host Larry King.
“I’ve known her a long time,” he told The Journal, adding, “I’m not an observant Jew. I come [to synagogue on] Yom Kippur and the holidays out of respect to my late parents.”
Watchfulness was another aspect of the holiday season. In the wake of potential terror threats, security was in force at many synagogues and on the minds of congregation leaders. Among locations where the Los Angeles Police Department stationed patrol cars were the Santa Monica Boulevard headquarters of the Anti-Defamation League, Young Israel of Century City shul on Pico Boulevard and on Olympic Boulevard at the Westside Jewish Community Center, where the Ikar spiritual community held services.
Police and synagogue security officials reported no incidents, although there were the usual parking hassles and a parking ticket for a huge red sedan parked entirely in a red zone near Sinai Temple in Westwood.
Inside, before a capacity crowd at the Conservative shul, Rabbi David Wolpe talked about limits, limitlessness, Judaism’s eternal values and, “to cherish memory, which is our bridge to forever.”
“We live in a world of limits,” Wolpe said. “The inside is limitless. Our limits aren’t the essence of us…. Judaism believes that people never end, we are limitless.”
Long ago, Wolpe said, “pagans worshipped what they could see…. And Judaism said no. We are the devotees of the intangible. The unseen is eternal. We insist on the reality of the spirit. Not to trust our senses but to trust more than our senses.”
Memory consumed much of Studio City’s small Congregation Beth Meier on Yom Kipper, part of the first High Holiday services without the Traditional-Conservative shul’s beloved founder, Rabbi Meier Schimmel. He died peacefully Sept. 30 in Encino at age 89, almost 47 years after opening the shul.
Beth Meier congregants, including the rabbi’s two daughters, gathered at the Beverly Garland Holiday Inn, nearby in North Hollywood, where the shul’s new young rabbi led services.
“I’ve never not seen my father on the pulpit in my life,” said daughter Selma Schimmel. “The only visions I have of the High Holidays are his dancing, his melodies, his voice.”
This was also the first Yom Kippur service without Meier for comic actor Larry Miller, who became close to the rabbi over the past 13 years and attended this year’s services with fellow actor Stephen Tobolowsky.
After saying the very last prayer of Yom Kippur, Miller told The Journal that he was very much at peace with Meier’s passing, gesturing with an index finger upward and saying, “It’s wonderful because we’re here and he’s there — and there’s a there, there.”
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Q & A With Bruce Feiler
“Where God Was Born: A Journey by Land to the Roots of Religion” by Bruce Feiler (William Morrow, $26.95).
With daily reports of suicide bombings in Iraq, never-ending violence between Israelis and Palestinians and Iran’s nuclear threat, it can be hard to imagine the Middle East as the birthplace of monotheism and all the ethics and piety that implies. But this heritage is exactly what Bruce Feiler explores in his new book.
In it, Feiler writes of his travels to Israel, Iraq and Iran — accompanied by various archeologists, theologians and historians. He tells the story against the backdrop of regional violence, interspersing observations on the Bible with descriptions of his bulletproof clothing. He shares his fear of being attacked and the very real danger of traveling on Iraqi highways. The book, in places, becomes an extreme travel memoir, depicting in lucid detail both risk and incredible cultural beauty.
Feiler spoke to The Journal by phone while taking a break from moving into his new Brooklyn home, which he shares with his wife and his 6-month-old identical twin girls.
Jewish Journal: Your new work follows on the heels of two that touched on consonant themes: “Walking the Bible, a Journey by Land Through the Five Books of Moses” (William Morrow, 2001) and “Abraham: A Journey to the Heart of Three Faiths” (William Morrow, 2002). What compelled you to write this new book?
Bruce Feiler: When I did “Walking the Bible,” it was a very personal journey. [I wanted to know] were these stories real? Could I find the places where they took place? But between then and now religion no longer has the luxury of being personal. It has really become much more urgent, and much more a matter of life and death, it seems. Conflicts from Afghanistan to Iraq, and even in the United States, everything from the battle over the Ten Commandments to Terry Schiavo to gay marriage [all have to do with religion].
I recently read a Time magazine cover story from 1966 titled “Is God Dead?” that said religions was dead as an influence in world affairs, and would never return again. I wanted to figure out why religion was the dominant story in the world now. The idea was to go back to the roots of religion itself, and to ask: Is it tearing us apart or bringing us together?
JJ: How do you view the Bible — as history? As a God-written manuscript?
BF: I view it as a story of how God and humans tried to develop a relationship with one another, and I believe that it had to contain great truth, and I think that it contains great meaning for life. I also believe it contains a wide variety of rhetorical techniques — history, law, poetry, really boring filibusters, a kind of legislative tedium, legend, psalms….
One reason for the Bible’s enduring power is that it is not a complete history. If you were turn it in to a newspaper editor, he would say, ‘please go out and do more reporting.’ What is left out is as important as what is put in. It invites each of us to enter the story…. Every generation can reinterpret it.
The story of Abraham sacrificing his son, for example. If you read that story on Sept. 10, 2001, and on Sept. 12, 2001, you would get a totally different understanding of it.
JJ: How so?
BF: The idea of killing in the name of God is introduced with Abraham, and that is just one story that seems very relevant to the times we live in today.
JJ: Do you think that the current Middle East conflict is a religious one or a political one?
BF: I think that it is primarily a geopolitical conflict, but that all sides use religion when they want to and ignore it when they want to. I don’t believe that you can use the Bible to draw borders and solve political problems. It is not what it was intended for.
JJ: Do you think that the ancient cities you visited, such as Jericho in Israel, Nasiriyah in Iraq and Pasargardae and Persepolis in Iran, fostered ancient societies that were more religious than the current communities who live in them today?
BF: That is a very hard question to answer. On the one hand, religion infused ancient society. There had not been science and rationality, nor the enlightenment and modern technology, which have changed the way we experienced religion. And literacy was not as widespread.
When religion was being formed in the middle of the first millennium, great religions were being formed all over the world, and it is pretty clear that the great religions were in dialogue with one another and in dialogue with the cultures around them. And the idea that one religion had an exclusive claim to the truth, I don’t think was a very widespread notion. I think that something that Christianity and Islam introduced into the world was that there can be one universal faith and everyone in the world will follow it. That has been a very destructive idea in the world in the past 1,000 years.
JJ: The history that you give of the Jewish people in “Where God Was Born,” which comes from a literalist reading of the Bible, is one of a bellicose, combative nation of militants. Does it worry you that our ancient leaders, like King David, were so bloodthirsty? How do you reconcile these bloodthirsty heroes with their current canonization, which is something that is taught in most Hebrew schools and Jewish day schools?
BF: I kind of understand why day school teachers want to teach David as a hero, because young Jews are looking for heroes who are strong and stick up for themselves. But I would say that one of things I have learned about the Bible is that we don’t have to accept the way we are taught. The stories are not black and white, and that is why they are interesting. One of the reasons that people don’t like the Bible is because they talk about it the same way that they did when they were 5. The fact that David was a failed leader gives me a lot to think about, and that is interesting.
JJ: Tell me about your own Judaism — how have the journeys taken in your last three books transformed your experience of faith?
BF: I have discovered a number of positive reasons to be Jewish, to balance off a lot of the negative reasons I heard when I was young — such as the Holocaust, discrimination, Israel is imperiled. The question [I am interested in] is can the religions get along, and Judaism has a very powerful, positive message to contribute to that conversation. We can teach the Christians and the Muslims that it is OK if everyone doesn’t agree with you, and it is OK not to impose your faith on others.
In the end, we all have to make our own relationship with God, that we can no longer accept what our politicians tell us, or our journalists tell us, or our parents tell us. We don’t have to just accept what our religious leaders tell us either. Each of us has to make our own relationship with God.
Meet Bruce Feiler Oct. 25, 7 p.m. at Vroman’s Bookstore, 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena. For information, call (626) 449-5320 or visit Q & A With Bruce Feiler Read More »
‘Protocols’ Exposes Ugly Legacy of Lies
Not long after Sept. 11, an Egyptian cab driver in New York told filmmaker Marc Levin, whose documentary “Protocols of Zion” is being released Friday in Los Angeles, the act of terrorism was caused by Jews rather than by Muslim fundamentalists.
No Jews had died in the attack, the cabbie said. They all had been warned in advance to stay away, part of the Jewish plan for world domination as spelled out in the “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”
This encounter opened Levin’s eyes to the resilience of the fraudulent “Protocols” and ultimately prompted him to make his new documentary “The Protocols of Zion,” which inevitably examines the staying power of anti-Semitism as well as this notorious artifact.
Levin was stunned by his encounter with the cabbie. A child of the 1960s who gobbled up Kennedy-conspiracy and other sinister theories, he remembered when he was first introduced to the “Protocols.”
“Someone gave it to me as ancient history saying, ‘You need to read this because it’s the greatest comic book of conspiracy thinking,'” he said. He never imagined that 40 years later he’d be “going down the streets of New York and people would say this is alive and well” — not to mention factual.
Levin said evidence points to agents of czarist Russia as creating and first publishing the anti-Semitic “Protocols” in 1905, a time of civil unrest in a country with a long history of animosity toward Jews. It purported to be an account of a meeting by Jewish elders on their secret plans for world domination. It attracted a following in Europe, including Hitler. In 1920, American industrialist Henry Ford translated it into English and offered it free with new cars.
Like many others, the 54-year-old Levin figured the hard lessons of the Holocaust had wiped out the book’s following — as well as the world’s taste for lies about Jews. But intrigued by the cabbie, he discovered that both the “Protocols” and the “no Jews died in 9/11” slurs had a strong following in an Arab/Muslim world shocked by the impact of Sept. 11 and already inflamed by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He found “Protocols” also had a following among some Arab Americans as well as among some American black nationalists and white supremacists.
Indeed, Egyptian and Hezbollah TV each have broadcast miniseries since Sept. 11 based on the “Protocols” to millions of Arabs and Muslims during Ramadan. And Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group, incorporated a belief in the “Protocols” into its charter.
Levin’s “Protocols of Zion” has the style of a first-person essay and intersperses scenes of humor amid the chilling revelations — as when a street fanatic decries Mayor “Jew-liani.” It’s stylistically akin to Michael Moore films, in which the director’s journey is part of the experience.
Levin patiently confronts those who espouse the “Protocols” as truth and tries to reason with them. He also movingly disproves the “no Jews died in Sept. 11” falsity. At the same time, he consults with his aging father, a former labor organizer who had taken him to the 1963 March on Washington, wondering what is happening in the world.
The filmmaker also broaches sensitive issues beyond the “Protocols,” such as the blaming of Jews for the death of Jesus. In “Protocols,” Levin is shown on the phone trying to persuade several Jews in the entertainment industry to watch Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ” and talk about it. He gets the runaround.
“Marc Levin is a truth seeker and courageously rushes past taboos and PC language to deliver a scary, human and often funny film,” said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. “One other important fact he discovered is how unavailable too many Jews in Hollywood are to confront the uncomfortable new-old phenomenon of anti-Semitism.”
The film is both shocking and important, said Alison Mayersohn, senior associate director of the Anti-Defamation League’s L.A. office: “Here we are, it’s the 21st century, and people believe this again — or still.”
A New Jersey-raised New Yorker who considers himself a secular Jew, Levin has had a long and wide-ranging filmmaking career. He has been especially interested in racial and cultural topics. His dramatic feature “Slam,” about a rap poet’s life amid mean streets and prison, won the Grand Jury Prize at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival. His “Twilight: Los Angeles” was an adaptation of Anna Deavere Smith’s play about the 1992 L.A. riots.
As a result, Levin has a certain street credibility and hip-hop-informed savvy. But that hasn’t won over black nationalist Eric Ture Muhammad, executive director of the Black African Holocaust Council, who attended a recent screening in New York.
“I have no proof,” he was reported in the New York Observer as saying about the “Protocols,” “that it’s a fabrication. I’m not here to say that I believe in it. However, it is uncanny how so many similarities in terms of what we see in the world today fit those ‘Protocols.'”
Reached by telephone, Muhammad said he takes issue with the movie for failing to refute the Protocols, point by point. He said it’s more accurate to describe Levin’s work as a film essay about discovering anti-Semitism in a post-Sept. 11 world.
“I’m for proving or disproving the facts behind anything,” Muhammad told The Journal. “If the Protocols are a forgery, we’ll all celebrate. If it’s true, that’s something to be dealt with.”
It is just such a mindset that intrigued and disquieted Levin in the first place — that an articulate, educated observer could find the Protocols to be plausible, even when Jews, not to mention reputable historians, can immediately spot the forgery as transparently ridiculous and fraudulent.
In Los Angeles for recent interviews, Levin is aware of a certain disconnect in talking about his film’s troubling subject in such a place as the dining room of Beverly Hills’ Le Meridien hotel. It’s tempting to think the whole world — certainly the whole country — must be as secure and accepting of him, his work, and of Jews. And yet Levin no longer takes such things for granted.
“Before Sept. 11, I didn’t give a lot of thought to these subjects,” he said. “One thing I can say for sure after making this film is that I’m much more mindful than I ever was. I have come to subscribe to the theory that when there are traumatic world-changing events there’s almost this default setting, certainly in the West and now we see the Muslim world adopting it, to blame the Jews. It’s almost built into the system.
“For me, the big question is how do you defuse the hate? How do you combat that? I would say that’s a question we’re going to struggle with,” he said. “I would say the battle for ideas matters. So those of us who deal in ideas are part of this. That’s what my film is saying. We have a responsibility to try to figure out how you fight this.”
The film opens today in Los Angeles. At 6:30 p.m. on Nov. 3, it screens at the Desert Jewish Film Festival in Palm Desert, co-sponsored by the Anti-Defamation League. For more information, visit ‘Protocols’ Exposes Ugly Legacy of Lies Read More »
Kohelet 5766
On the holiday of Sukkot, it is customary to read Kohelet, the Book of Ecclesiastes, written by King Solomon. The following “updated” version of Kohelet is written by Judy Gruen, with major apologies to King Solomon.
“Futility of futilities,” Sarah Rivkah bas Leah Rochel said. “All is futile.”
What profit does a balabusta have for all her labor, which she toils in the supermarket and in the kitchen?
A table of guests comes and a table of guests goes, but Yom Tov endures almost forever. And the sun rises and the sun sets — then it is Yom Tov again. All the guests flow into the sukkah, yet the sukkah is not full until we invite the ushpizin (seven souls). (Could have fooled me; there is hardly room to put the soup.)
All meals become wearying; one becomes speechless, except for my youngest child, who won’t let anyone else get a word in edgewise. Whatever has been cooked is what will be served, and whatever was forgotten in the back of the refrigerator will not be served. There are no new recipes beneath the sun (except at Susan’s house — she has more than 100 cookbooks, and even uses them). Sometimes there is a salad of which one says, “Look! This is new!” Yet it is simply arugula with mustard vinaigrette, and it has already existed in the ages before us.
I, a balabusta, am queen over my kitchen in Pico-Robertson, so why do I feel like a galley slave? I applied my mind and body to creatively prepare for two-dozen Yom Tov meals — it is a task that God has given to the daughters of Israel with which to be concerned. But I have seen all I want to see of the aisles of the kosher store this week, and behold, finding parking becomes a vexation of the spirit. A car twisted into taking two parking spots cannot be made to fit in one parking spot if you don’t have the keys; and what I will spend in the market cannot be numbered.
Then I looked at all the things that I had done and the energy I had expended in doing them; it was clear that was all madness and folly, since the fly-catcher I had hung in the sukkah fell down and went splat on the ground and a great stink rose in the sukkah. This, too, was a vexation of the spirit and caused much grief, as she who even inadvertently creates a stink in the sukkah increases pain.
Everything has its season, and there is a time for everything under the heavens:
A time to plan menus, and a time to shop.
A time to cook, and a time to set the table.
A time to put children in time out, and a time to heal.
A time to bake cakes and a time to eat.
A time to shop again, and a time to pray for parking.
A time to chop vegetables, and a time to borrow two onions from your neighbor.
A time to serve guests, and a time to clean up.
A time to feel exhausted … is a good time to stay silent.
I have observed that God put an enigma in our minds so that we cannot comprehend why He wants us to do so much cooking and serving. Thus I have perceived that I may as well rejoice and cook more meals before the next dozen guests sidle into the sukkah. Indeed most men and women who eat and drink will find satisfaction in all my labor — it is a gift from God (and since Yom Tov is not yet over I hope it is a gift that will keep on giving).
Go, eat your bread with joy and drink your wine with a glad heart, since I put it all on the Visa and the store merchant approved my credit. Take care lest you spill dark grape juice on my white tablecloth, or I may be tempted to anoint your head with oil.
The race to the bakery is indeed won by the swift and the grocery shopping achieved by the strong, and this is a good thing since weeks of Yom Tov will happen to us all. Like fish caught in a net, like birds seized in a snare, so are women caught in a moment of disaster when Yom Tov falls upon them suddenly. This, too, I have observed personally, and it affected me profoundly.
The balabusta seeks to rejoice under the “clouds of glory,” no matter how many three-day Yom Tovs there are, and feed her guests without comparing her menu to that of her neighbor, who has been baking since before Labor Day, since that would be a vexation of the spirit. Home-baked challah will also be digested in the same way as store-bought challah. After all, a feast is made for laughter and wine gladdens life, so let your heart cheer you in the days of Yom Tov, especially if you have not spent most of the previous month in the kitchen. Wear sensible shoes in the kitchen, for you will stand there for a long time.
The sum of the matter, when all is considered: Fear God and keep His commandments, and remember to stock up on Shabbas candles and extra canned goods that can quickly be made into a salad in case you leave a dish on the stove for too long. This is not a balabusta’s whole duty, but it sure is a big part of it during Yom Tov.
Judy Gruen is the mother of four kids and humor writer. Read more of her columns and order copies of her award-winning humor books on www.judygruen.com.
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Democrats’ Plans Must Factor in Israel
As public support for the war in Iraq continues to deteriorate and as the Bush administration’s political situation trembles on the precipice, Democrats are beginning to stir. Pushed by a party base that has long detested what it sees as timorous accommodation to Bush, national Democrats are trying out themes and approaches that they hope will bring them back to a share of national power.
The most comfortable territory for newly emboldened Democrats will be domestic policy, and that is why the Hurricane Katrina disaster has been such a political turning point. But Jewish voters will certainly hope that a thoughtful, effective foreign policy that helps preserve Israel’s security will be a prominent part of that turnaround.
Democrats thrive on domestic policy. But for Jewish voters, foreign policy, or at least Middle East policy, is literally a form of domestic policy. For most voters, foreign policy extends only as far as locations where American troops are suffering casualties, which means Iraq and Afghanistan today. American Jews are well aware of the Iraq and Afghanistan situations, but are also watching Israel’s back with great care.
In this sense, Jewish voters are not the simple party-line Democrats that they seem to be. Because of their great commitment to Israel, Jews attentively observe the two parties not only on the usual issues that divide them, but on Israel’s security as well. For Jewish voters, therefore, the best Democratic foreign policy is not to be just anti-Bush. It is to restore the grand tradition of a strong, respected and admired America, while maintaining this nation’s special relationship with Israel.
When the Iraq War was first launched, it was greeted positively by Israel’s political leadership, which saw the defeat of one of its enemies. It is hard to imagine today, though, that the likely creation of a pro-Iranian state in Iraq is good news for Israel.
But while the war has turned out to be an even bigger catastrophe than its critics had predicted, Jewish voters are rightfully wary of linking together sentiment against the Iraq War with anti-Israel feelings. Outside the United States, criticism of the Iraq War goes hand in hand with criticism of Israel.
For decades many in the Middle East have resented America’s close and domestically bipartisan ties to Israel, and for that there need be no apology here or in Europe or in the Middle East. The gross misjudgments and lies that paved the way to Baghdad are the work of one single administration, not a bipartisan consensus of presidents from Harry S. Truman to Bill Clinton. But the Bush administration’s single-minded pursuit of war and its boneheaded inattentiveness to postwar reconstruction have done little to redeem the promise to make Israel safer.
Few Americans have been watching the internal machinations of Israeli politics in the wake of the Gaza withdrawal, but we can be certain that Jewish voters are watching. The twists and turns of Israeli politics have forced progressive American Jews to take a long second look at one of the left’s political demons: Ariel Sharon.
Vilified by the Likud right wing, Sharon is hanging onto party leadership and his coalition government by a thread, and by his viable threat to form a new party with centrist and leftist parties. To sophisticated observers of Israel’s evolving politics, the peace community in Israel has a major and surprising interest in the political survival of Sharon, who is vilified by progressives outside Israel.
What does this all mean for a Democratic foreign policy that can provide an alternative to the Bush program?
From the standpoint of Jewish voters, it would be best not to revisit all post-World War II American foreign policy, but only the dangerous side road that has been Bush’s policy since Sept. 11, 2001, of pre-emptive war, unilateralism and the Iraq War. The bipartisan idea of a strong America that does not seek war, but is not afraid to fight one, is a far better position than simply being anti-war. And it is crucial to those who support Israel that Israel’s safety not become entangled in the effort to disengage America from the excesses of the ideological Bush foreign policy.
The Democrats need to develop a bench of foreign policy specialists who could advise a presidential candidate and could staff a Democratic White House. Such a group would help reassure Jewish (and other) voters that Democrats are serious about world leadership, which is essential to Israel’s security.
It helped Republicans immensely that in the early 1970s, a number of Jewish defense intellectuals (once known as Henry “Scoop” Jackson Cold War Democrats) moved from the Democrats to the Republicans, providing intellectual heft to the Republican foreign policy program. These were the years when the smallest proportion of Jews voted for the Democratic presidential candidate. Such specialists might have warned John Kerry in 2004 not to propose that Jimmy Carter and James Baker be his Middle East envoys, because they would have foreseen how Jewish voters would react negatively to both names.
When it comes to Israel, it may be painful for Democrats to admit, but in one area Bush may have been right, and the generally thoughtful Clinton wrong, and that is in the last-ditch pursuit of a peace agreement for its own sake.
Near the end of his presidency, Clinton was pushing extremely hard for a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. But many Israelis, even on the left, had already come to believe after the collapse of the Oslo accords that Yasser Arafat was a fraud who would never deliver peace. The Bush group, dedicated in all things to doing the opposite of Clinton, even when Clinton was right, in this case avoided the peace process and backed the Israeli government position against Arafat. And then when Arafat died, the process opened up through Israel’s own political process.
Therefore, Democrats ought to consider continuing that in which Bush was right about Israel, while undoing the catastrophic damage he has done to the world, to the United States and Israel in Iraq. And in so doing, Democrats will prove that they are more than the anti-Bush, and that it is Bush who is the anomaly in American foreign policy.
Raphael J. Sonenshein, a political scientist at Cal State Fullerton, is spending the fall as a visiting scholar at the USC department of political science.
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‘New’ Farrakhan Embodies Old Message
Last weekend, the nation’s capital hosted the Millions More March, a gathering commemorating the 10th anniversary of the Nation of Islam’s
Million Man March. The Rev. Louis Farrakhan, the main convener of the march, led tens of thousands in a daylong marathon of blame, calls for “self-help” and extremism.
Aware of the media attention that was focused on him, Farrakhan delivered his lengthy keynote address full of his unusual notions and his analysis of the state of race relations in America. He avoided the hate-filled rhetoric of which he is so capable, choosing instead to present the “new” Farrakhan to the wider-than-usual audience and the assembled media.
But the mask is transparent. Farrakhan’s incendiary message of division is all too obvious, in fact glaringly apparent to those who bother to look. The media, once again, failed to discern the message of division that is at the heart of the Nation of Islam’s credo and the grab bag of extremists who paraded to the podium throughout the day.
Joining Farrakhan on the stage were some of the march’s endorsers who have apparently chosen to ignore the unsavory parts of his program. The pre-march endorsers included Coretta Scott King, Maya Angelou, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) and the Rev. Al Sharpton. These leaders seem to think that the good reverend is a genuine builder of bridges intent on bettering America
Farrakhan and his minions around the country work hard to create an image of him as an elder statesman in the civil rights and religious world, one who really seeks racial and religious harmony. The “new” Farrakhan has been able to travel the country, meeting with myriad elected officials, opining on national and international affairs and be treated as a seemingly rational molder of opinion. The altered image seems almost to have stuck.
But Farrakhan is not a healer, and all the marches he convenes or sanitized speeches he delivers while C-SPAN is on won’t change the divisive message that is at the heart of his and the Nation of Islam’s rhetoric. He may mute and soften his message on occasion, but in the press of events and crisis, the real message of Farrakhan and his Nation of Islam emerges.
Most recently, his leitmotif of dividing America and sowing suspicion among races came to the surface through his thin veneer of moderation. In the wake of the Hurricane Katrina tragedy, there was one voice which had a different take than virtually all others — one that didn’t talk of post-hurricane incompetence, tardy assistance or poor co-ordination, but rather spoke of a willful government effort “to destroy the city where black people lived.” That voice was Farrakhan’s.
In speeches that have received virtually no serious media attention, Farrakhan has unashamedly suggested that one of the levees “may have been blown up to destroy the black part of town and keep the white part dry.”
This is a horrible thing to think that somebody would do, but all one needs to understand is our history and black-white relations in this country, and what some are capable of doing out of envy and desire for political and economic advancement. “[The United States] has some very wicked people in high places if you look at our history,” Farrakhan insisted.
Farrakhan didn’t misspeak in a moment of high energy. He hasn’t retracted or modified his incendiary allegations, in fact, he has expanded on them. He has alleged on several occasions over the past few weeks that a levee was blown up to drown the pre-dominantly black sections of New Orleans — murder on a massive scale
In 2005, when it is hard for comments of anyone to go unnoticed or un-Googled, it is difficult to fathom why responsible leaders would tolerate, let alone endorse, the advocate of such inflammatory and divisive views. How can Jackson, et al., lend their names to a demagogue who so cravenly and dangerously exploits one of the worst tragedies in recent American history? There is no message of self-empowerment or reorganizing black America that can sanitize this incendiary message that has no basis in fact.
Farrakhan’s consorting with the likes of the hateful Malik Zulu Shabazz (co-convener of the March) and the homophobic Rev. Willie Wilson (executive director of the Millions More Movement who has decried growing female independence, because it results in “our women becoming lesbian”) clearly hasn’t tainted him sufficiently for the civil rights leaders to keep their distance until now. Shouldn’t these comments alleging mass racial murder finally have opened their eyes?
Twenty years ago, as the head of a local civil rights organization, I wrote an op-ed about a visit to Los Angeles by Farrakhan. I warned of the danger of thinking that one could parse Farrakhan’s message of “self-empowerment” from his then even more blatant bigotry and inflammatory rhetoric: “For decades, human rights, educational and liberal organizations have labored to indelibly imprint on the psyche of every young American that hate — no matter how neatly packaged, no matter the appeal of its purveyor — is outside the acceptable political lexicon of our society.”
Today the message is just as apt. The ethos that rejects hate and its messenger is even more vital in this increasingly diverse society. Demagoguery and the intent to divide and inflame is simply unacceptable.
The Jesse Jacksons and Al Sharptons can’t legitimize a divider like Farrakhan because it’s convenient and suits their purposes, and then hope to be taken seriously as genuine pursuers of equal opportunity and civil rights. A bigot and racist has to be denounced and isolated, not winked at and lionized.
David Lehrer is president of Community Advocates ( ‘New’ Farrakhan Embodies Old Message Read More »