Peace is possible, people. If Jews and Arabs can work together to sell cocaine and service hookers, what can't they accomplish?

From the London Times:

A rabbi set up in business as a drug dealer and lavished his supplies of cocaine on young prostitutes at parties, a jury was told yesterday.

Rabbi Baruch Chalomish, 54, bearded and wearing a trilby hat, shared the dock at Manchester Crown Court with an interpreter who occasionally translated the barristers' words into Hebrew.

He was said by the prosecution to be a wealthy man who took up with Nasir Abbas, also 54, a convicted dealer, who had the "knowhow" and the contacts in the drug trade. The rabbi was the financier in the operation. They set up their "commercial cocaine-supply operation" in an hotel service flat in Shudehill, Manchester, where, it is alleged, Chalomish liked to dispense the drug in return for "sexual favours".

It is a wonderful piece of alternate universe American history, in which President Nixon had to explain to a nation that Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong were going to die on the moon.

In his astutely worded takedown of the movie, Liel Leibovitz says that Tarantino's revisionist history—where Jewish soldiers kill Nazis and burn Hitler alive—robs history of its shades of gray, and, thereby, this "bit of shallow propaganda" ruins the lessons we were taught by WWII.

It is a failure not only of imagination, but also of morality. The desire to turn film into a literal, blunt instrument of revenge drains it of the terrific power it has as a sharp and precise tool with which to cut through myopia, forgetfulness, ignorance, and denial. When in the hands of intelligent and sensitive directors, the results are shocking, evocative, world-changing.

Of course, all the filmmakers he goes on to name who do this well—Jean-Pierre Melville, Marcel Ophüls, and Claude Lanzmann—are Jewish.

Theirs is the Jewish way. Rather than burn film, they develop it into art. They are talmudic, offering endless interpretations to the fundamental question of our species, the question of our seemingly endless capacity for evil. Tarantino, however, is not interested in such trifles. He doesn't see cinema as a way to look at reality, but-ever the child abandoned in front of the television set, ever the video-store geek-as an alternative to reality, a magical and Manichean world where we needn't worry about the complexities of morality, where violence solves everything, and where the Third Reich is always just a film reel and a lit match away from cartoonish defeat.

So, add to the heaps of criticism of the movie that Tarantino isn't Jewish enough to make a good movie about Nazis. We don't agree with that. We believe that no matter the race, creed, or color, people have the ability to make shitty movies in about equal degree.

According to the Washington Post, he walked into the museum with a shotgun shortly before 1 p.m. Though their earlier report cited three victims, it now appears that the only people shot were a security guard and the shooter himself.

At white supremacist discussion sites like Stormfront, von Brunn has been called a "racialist treasure" because of his 1999 book which argued that Jews were a deadly threat to white Americans. From its preface:

Upon reading TOB SHEBBE GOYIM HAROG! (KILL THE BEST
GENTILES!) you will understand that - despite loud protests of
denial - an age old CONSPIRACY does exist to destroy Western
Civilization. At this moment we are engaged in a deadly war with
the HISTORIC ENEMY to determine whether or not our Nation
will endure. We are losing that war because an Iron Curtain of
censorship has descended over the landscape abrogating the First
Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. Without
Freedom of Speech our system of government cannot function.
The hour is late. You and your family are in grave danger.

A typical review on Stormfront:

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Here is the Southern Poverty Law Center's Mark Potok going through a bit of von Brunn's biography on MSNBC.

[Pic by pauria via Flickr]

It wasn't too long ago that Jewish neoconservatives were a power center in the Republican Party, and left-wing anti-war types were the anti-Semites for pointing out that Israel wanted the U.S. to invade Iraq. We're happy the right-wing has returned its comfortable, Nixonian, Jew-hating, so we can get all suspicious when we hear Patrick Toomey, Specter's Pennsylvania rival, tell Sean Hannity that Specter has "always been a fish out of water," and attack him for "duplicity." You just can't trust a Jew.

Zuckerman's "blog," as the Huffington Post insists on calling posts, is headlined "The Story You Aren't Hearing About Israel," and leads with this:

Did you hear about the two policemen who stopped to help a driver stuck with a flat—and were shot to death in the head at point-blank range?

Did you know about the 120-kilogram bomb planted in a parking lot adjacent to a shopping mall where thousands of people were milling about the stores, restaurants, and movie theaters?

No, of course, you didn't. These are just two everyday incidents of the ordeal confronted by people in Israel while the world and the political leaders look away. Outrages like these do not make it into the Western media, which exhibit the familiar phenomenon of monitoring only the conflicts that are the flavor of the month.... Ordinary Israelis despair of the cruel bias.

Alright, let's take the bait! Here's the New York Times covering the two police officers getting shot. And here's the Washington Post. And here's the Los Angeles Times. Other papers that ignored the story by writing about it include the Boston Herald, the Chicago Tribune, the Orlando Sentinel, and the London Daily Telegraph.

What about the New York Daily News? Did it devote newsprint to the murders? Of course not, because it is owned by a royal putz who knows not whereof he speaks.

Zuckerman also, in passing, blames the murders of the traffic cops on the fact that "Israel eased restrictions on movement in the Nablus area of the West Bank." This is false, according to Israeli police commanders:

Senior police officials say that the removal of checkpoints and the low intensity of Israel Defense Forces operations in the West Bank did not contribute to Sunday's shooting death of two traffic cops in the Jordan Valley.

But Zuckerman doesn't believe them, because he is a raving anti-Semite.

[Via Mondoweiss.]

The poll, commissioned by liberal Jewish advocacy group J Street, demonstrates just how deep Madoff's scam went when it comes to Jewish investors and charities. According to the poll, 2% of American Jews were personally swindled by Madoff, 17% know someone who was taken in, and 28% said an organization they support was affected. Somehow J Street says this adds up to 39%. Update: A J Street employee clarifies that, yes, the poll question allowed multiple responses, as some of you suggested in comments.

[Via Mondoweiss]

Sunday morning brings the dawn in. I've got a restless feeling by my side. Oh, halo. It's the tabloids! Today, Lauren Conrad makes some unwise choices and Mr. Lohan makes an unwanted appearance. Read on.

• Human facsimile Lauren Conrad spent last night "hugging and whispering" and "exchanging phone numbers" with The Miz, a professional wrestler. What did they talk about? My guess is the fungible nature of reality and also waxing techniques. "OMG, Nads is the worst!" [P6]
• Piece of shit father Michael Lohan used his daughter's warrant to call her relationship "toxic" in an exclusive to US Magazine. [US]
• You know who made out in this whole Madoff thing? Jews!!! Let the pogroms begin. No but seriously, if you're looking for a good yad, I hear now is a great buyer's market.[P6]
• Gwyneth Paltrow's TriBeCa gym is failing miserably. Members complain about GOOP covering the equipment. What, haven't they even been to David Barton? First sentence true. Second, a set up. Third, the pay off. [P6]
• Bradgina spawn Shiloh. who is—let's face it—cute as a button has an imaginary friend named Amy and refuses to eat. "Two cute," says Star. Funny, I have an imaginary friend named Tina and my teeth fall out. Too cute too?

The captain of the under-21 team, Phil Boon, said he "didn't see what the problem was". He said Jewish girls had accepted invites to the party. "I can understand why it might have offended some people, but it would have been an awesome social." Boon refused to comment further.

[Guardian]

So Benjamin, will Rahm influence the White House to more pro-Israel?

“Obviously he’ll influence the President to be pro-Israel. Why wouldn’t he? What is he, an Arab? He’s not going to be mopping floors at the White House.”

Hmm... ok. Apology forthcoming, Arabs! [via Ben Smith; Pic via]

Vote McCain:

"Filthy, disgusting" McCain:

[via Haaretz.com]

Both videos, after the jump:

• 
  Mason vs. Silverman [Politico]

“'If you get to be 23 or 24 and you’re not married, your parents are going to say you shouldn’t be living at home anymore,' said Rabbi Allen Schwartz of Congregation Ohab Zedek, a synagogue on West 95th Street near Columbus Avenue that is heavily attended by young Orthodox singles. 'Where are you going to go?' he added. 'To Teaneck, where there might be another 10 singles like you? You go to the West Side, where there are another 5,000 singles like you.'

"[Baruch] November, an English professor and poet from Pittsburgh who moved to the Upper West Side five years ago, put it this way: 'It’s like all roads lead to the West Side [...] Matchmakers still have the idea that if you put two Jews together, it will work,' Mr. November said. 'But that’s a shtetl mentality. In the shtetl, what else did you know but your neighbor and your neighbor’s daughter? If you’re not sheltered, that’s not going to work. All we have are Marc Chagall paintings of that life. We’re not in the shtetl anymore.'"

Young and with-it and looking for love? Cue the SATC reference!

"But while the Upper West Side may offer an expanded pool of singles, some say its social offerings can distract from the presumed goal of marriage. The lifestyle sometimes resembles a relatively chaste version of that depicted in the television series 'Sex and the City,' featuring below-the-knee designer skirts and kosher wine in place of Cosmopolitans."

Followed neatly by the sad reality of that series:

“'In a way, the West Side is like Never-Never Land,' Mr. November said. 'People tell their parents they’re going to meet someone, but it’s an extended childhood.'” [NYT]

Lord,

Protect my family and me. Forgive me my sins and help me guard against pride and despair.

Give me the wisdom to do what is right and just.

And make me an instrument of your will.

Instrument of his will? Can you say, messiah complex? Don't worry, Commentary will.

[Politico on the prayer]
[Bwog on the thesis]

The religious double standard meme returned with a vengeance soon after this moment of civility. A commentator called the Brooklyn Flea "abjectly disrespectful to the Christian sabbath," and then declared that "You better not believe this would happen with Hasidic Jews." Boos. She ignored them, though, and raised her voice. "If it can't happen on a Jewish sabbath, it can't happen on a Christian sabbath!" A combination of boos and cheers followed. A man stood up and said he'd been in the neighborhood since 1987, when he "was attending Pratt and saw a fellow student get shot in the face in front of [his] dormitory." He called out the previous commentators for antisemitism, said he loved the flea market, and then began to sit down. Someone shouted, "where do you live?" He didn't say anything, and the shouts got louder. "Where do you live? Tell us where you live! Do you live around here?" It was absurd. Finally the guy stood up and said, "I live three doors down from here," and everyone grew quiet.

In Field of Dreams Iowa, you get called a Nazi cow for threatening to ban a 60's peacenik novel. In the outer boroughs, for harshing on the tchotchke vending.

[Racked]

Israel came into being at almost the exact time that America plunged into the Cold War. How has the unusual alliance between the global superpower and the regional pariah evolved? What role has Israel played in U.S. foreign policy? Have American interests and values about the Jewish state changed in the post-9/11 world? Why are so many quick to explain U.S. strategy by referring to Israel and "Jewish interests"?

Don't worry if you missed the talk live; it's being syndicated all this month on the Hezbollah premium channel.

[Nextbook]