Comments on: Avraham Burg: Douchebag?

By: Gerald Caplan can go fuck himself II

Gerald Caplan can go fuck himself II — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 00:24:11 +0000

[...] utilization of Avrum “Jews and Israelis have become thugs” Burg as some sort of prophet only works with those unfamiliar with Mr. Burg’s(how [...]

By: Strauss kahn

Strauss kahn — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 21:06:00 +0000

Avraham Burg is completely right. If you keep killing and Dont expect any reprisals then one is living in a Fools paradise. IF you dont treat your neighbours well then expect hostility. To Get respect one has to FIRST GIVE RESPECT. otherwise this cyclical war will continue for 100′s of years. Hatred will only grow. With nothing to lose the Palistinians will only pose a threat which one day will be reality (then it would be too late). History says Noone has Defeated a NATION. Learn and First GIVE RESPECT & AID . A FAT LION will never attack you.

By: an american relative of burg

an american relative of burg — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 04:33:38 +0000

avraham burg is right. israel must become a light to the nations. oppression of your neighbors, creating an “other” dehumanizing the palestinians is what burg is opposing. wake up!!
israel’s hope is in making peace with their neighbors, withdrawing all settlements on the west bank. no more fence.

By: Tom Morrissey

Tom Morrissey — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 13:59:50 +0000

David Remnick has an interesting, decently-balanced article on Burg in the current issue of New Yorker magazine.

By: Jewish Mother

Jewish Mother — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 16:58:14 +0000

All right, who’s putting in the emoticons? I never use emoticons.

By: Jewish Mother

Jewish Mother — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 16:57:03 +0000

I was slyly undermining WEVS1′s faith in the healing qualities of intermarriage. I was positing that although intermarriage may heal traditional cultural conflicts, it eliminates people, Darwinly, over the long term.

Why? Because: people really have children because of a cultural imperative, an imperative that only an old, traditional, consistent culture can impose. Take away traditional culture, and the result is: no kids.

(Although having children can be quite a challenge economically, alas.)

1) happiness
2) education
3) money
4) self expression
5) freedom
6) achievement
7) self esteem
joyful retirement
9) death
10) extinction
11) oblivion
12 Next?

By: Jewish Mother

Jewish Mother — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 16:43:24 +0000

I know she is fading, but I meant her as a generic. I can’t be bothered keeping up with who her successors are.

By: Jewish Mother

Jewish Mother — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 16:40:53 +0000

Gee Willikers!!!!!

Your post seems curiously self contradictory from one paragraph to the next.

Maybe I need to eat something.

I did NOT say MUSIC caused social sterility I said the disgusting pop culture, of which the unfurled martial banner is Britney Spears’s belly button, causes social sterility.

It is all my generation’s fault. Leave poor Liszt et alia alone.

By: Tom Morrissey

Tom Morrissey — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 15:55:32 +0000

Jewish Mother, are folks (Jewish or not) no longer having kids anymore? That doesn’t seem empirically true to me.

As for music causing social sterility: this may explain my own situation. Especially when I reflect that the likes of Beethoven, Brahms, and Bruckner never married, Gesualdo killed his (first) wife, and Liszt ended up in the priesthood.

By: Jewish Mother

Jewish Mother — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 15:42:27 +0000

It’s the sterility that bothers me. You are trying to get me to comment on intra versus inter marriage but I don’t want to. You are sliding past my remark that traditional culture is an engine of fertility. If that were true, and it sure looks true, would you still be so happy with intermarriage?

By: WEVS1

WEVS1 — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 10:40:41 +0000

I hear you JM, thanks for the comments. Brittney is not my cup of tea but I am way too old for that sort of stuff. As far as intermarriage between various groups (religious, ethnic, national, racial), it is increasing in the U.S. and I think this is a good thing.

By: Shy Guy

Shy Guy — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 09:54:11 +0000

JPost: The apple that fell far from the tree .

By: Jewish Mother

Jewish Mother — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 21:38:13 +0000

WEVS1, you have a point, that the only way to escape Britney S and her belly button is to go heavy duty Orthodox. As for marrying and having babies, you are way, way too optimistic. Listening to Britney causes sterility. How many people are really in fact marrying and having babies? The other stuff, sure. But then you get carried away and take it to the logical conclusion. If only.

There is being surgically sterilized, and then, there is being socially sterilized.

People have become mules: intelligent, hardworking, comely, but sterile.

Substituting Britney for shul does not work, Darwinly speaking. No kids.

By: WEVS1

WEVS1 — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 15:14:02 +0000

Avi, I don’t live in Israel so I won’t comment at length about your claims regarding Israelis. Very good friends of mine live in settlements outside of Yerushalayim and in the city. My secular friends definitely do not conform to your negative caricatures. But none are from “elite” backgrounds so perhaps that may have something to do with it.

As far as the “low brow” versus “high brow” tastes of American Jews, you really need to educate yourself. Most folks in the U.S. are obsessed with consumerism and pop-culture. Members of every ethnic group, every national group and every religious group listen to Britney Spears and the like. That includes Jews. Nobody is immune…

As far as intermarriage, one of the things that makes the United States such a wonderful place, in particular the cities, is the opportunity for people of different racial, ethnic, and religious backgrounds to meet, eat, drink, dance, fuck, get married and have babies without killing each other. Much of the civilized world is moving in this direction.

By: ck

ck — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 14:57:47 +0000

Wait Eitan – aren’t we supposed to be God’s chosen people, a light unto the nations? If ever a utopian scale were appropriate…

But I digress. My comment was made tongue in cheek, and was a reference to a statement made by French Ambassador to London, Daniel Bernard. Burg is now a French citizen… see where I am going with this?

By: Eitan

Eitan — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 13:48:08 +0000

Israel is NOT a ‘shitty little country.’ It’s a small, amazing, miraculous, embattled country with strengths and weaknesses, triumphs and failures, rich and poor,. It could be better. It should be better. But it’s only ‘shitty’ if you’re judging it on some utopian scale.

By: avi

avi — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 02:27:19 +0000

When you can’t refute facts resort to insults.
I’m still waiting for edification.
I would love to be informed that Ben G really did try to get FDR to bomb the lines to Aushwitz or that the yemenites just decided on their own to be secular. Perhaps De Haan was killed because of homosexual inclinations and not because of politics. I would love to be shown that Rabin didn’t kill his political opponents in cold blood on that Tel Aviv beach. Hey if the intermarriage rate can be suddenly rediscovered to be 50 and not 70% maybe all that right wing propaganda I spew could be wrong.
Burg is not his father, and actions and associations contradict his allegedly observant lifestyle. But as any statisticain will attest an outlier does not affect the overall bell curve.
No I am not recently observant nor do I feel everyone needs to subscribe to my level or greater. As a matter of fact, let the Adam Shapiros of this world marry goyim. Or let the Peace Now and Burg types become yordim. To paraphrase Rabin , that would be a way of getting rid of our refuse.

By: themiddle

themiddle — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 01:48:12 +0000

You’re officially tiresome. Let me guess, you’ve recently had a religious epiphany and now you think that everybody needs to subscribe to your devotion. The person about whom this post was written is an observant Jew. Get it?

By: avi

avi — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 23:34:26 +0000

Its all true . If not edify me.
As to seculars, my post was nuanced to distinguish “Secular but strongly Jewish ” and secular “I’m not Jewish I’m Israeli”.
The problem is that the former is shrinking-think of Olmerts kids- while the latter is growing.
If Ben Gurion , Kastner et al joined with the Bergson group and helped get American Jewry off their duff and got FDR to do something sooner than late 44 and the resulting action saved a million Jews but sacrificed a state. I would take the million Jews and wait a few more years for Israel.
Unfortunately the 6 million were the best Jewsish community we had, and their survivors form the core of Judaism in America.
perhaps there are those who would choose Israel over saving Eastern European Jewry and they did!

By: themiddle

themiddle — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 22:37:10 +0000

Avi, even if there is some truth to what you write, there is so much in there that is false and you write it with such venom that you undermine every part of your claim. Clam down, dude.

Oh, and do try to remember that there wouldn’t be a state if it weren’t for the secular Jews you’re dismissing.