When balance becomes betrayal

NOVEMBER 18, 2012,Daniel Gordis
Daniel Gordis is Senior Vice President and Koret Distinguished Fellow at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem… [More]

Universalism, Cynthia Ozick once noted, has become the particularism of the Jews. Increasingly, our most fundamental belief about ourselves is that we dare not care about ourselves any more than we can about others. Noble Jews have moved beyond difference.

This inability to distinguish ourselves from the mass of humanity, this inability to celebrate our own origins, our own People and our own homeland, I argue in my latest book, The Promise of Israel, is dysfunctional. Do we not care about our own children more than we care about other people’s children? And shouldn’t we? Are our own parents not our responsibility in a way that other people’s parents are not? The same is true of nations and ethnicities. The French care about the French more than they do about others. So do the Italians. So do the Spanish. It’s only this new, re-imagined Jew who is constantly seeking to transcend origins which actually make us who we are and enable us to leave our distinct fingerprints on the world.

That ­an utterly universalized Judaism is almost entirely divorced from the richness of Jewish heritage and the worldview of our classic texts is bad enough. But on weeks like this, with hundreds of thousands of Israelis sleeping in bomb shelters and many millions more unspeakably frightened, it’s become clear that this universalized Judaism has rendered not only platitudinous Jews, but something worse. It bequeaths us a new Jew utterly incapable of feeling loyalty. The need for balance is so pervasive that even an expression of gut-level love for Israelis more than for their enemies is impossible. Balance has now bequeathed betrayal.
For me, the most devastating representation of this ethical and emotional confusion this week came from the pen of someone for whom I have great admiration, respect and affection. Rabbi Sharon Brous is, to my mind, one of the most intelligent and creative minds in the American Jewish community. A perpetual fixture among the Forward 50, she is almost universally recognized for her path-breaking vision of what a synagogue can be, and her combination of deep intelligence and authentic soulfulness have reached many Jews who would otherwise not be attached to the Jewish world.

Because I hold Rabbi Brous in such high esteem and consider her a friend, I was especially devastated to read her message to her community this week, which I quote in full:
It has been a devastating couple of days in Israel and Gaza.

I believe that the Israeli people, who have for years endured a barrage of rocket attacks targeting innocents and designed to create terror, instability and havoc, have the right and the obligation to defend themselves. I also believe that the Palestinian people, both in Gaza and the West Bank, have suffered terribly and deserve to live full and dignified lives. And I happen to agree with the editors of the New York Times that the best way for Israel to diminish the potency of Hamas – which poses a genuine threat to Israel – is to engage earnestly and immediately in peace negotiations with the Palestinian Authority.

But most critically at this hour, I believe that there is a real and profound need for all of us to witness with empathy and grace. Take a breath. We are deeply entrenched in our narratives of good and evil, victim and perpetrator – and we are scared. Over one million Israelis will sleep in bomb shelters tonight and rockets have nearly reached Tel Aviv. So it’s tempting to dig in our heels, to diminish the loss on the other side of the border, even to gloat. This is not the Jewish way. However you feel about the wisdom and timing of Israel’s response to the Hamas threat, the people of Israel need our strong support and solidarity. At the same time, supporting Israel’s right to protect and defend itself does not diminish the reality that the Palestinian people are also children of God, whose suffering is real and undeniable.

Let us pray that this conflict comes to an end quickly, and that we soon see a return to negotiations and a real, viable and sustainable peace.
It is, on the surface, a lovely and innocuous message. But what’s deeply troubling about it is that every single expression of sympathy for Israelis immediately coupled to a similar sentiment about the Palestinians. Absolute balance, even on a week like this, has become the supreme commandment. “Thou shall love thy neighbor who attacks thee as yourself.”
What do we have? Israelis have a right and obligation to defend themselves, but in the very next sentence, Palestinians have a right to lives of dignity. Nothing wrong with that. Israelis are scared, but so are Palestinians, and it is not our place to gloat. Fair enough. And even more balance: “the people of Israel need our strong support and solidarity. At the same time, supporting Israel’s right to protect and defend itself does not diminish the reality that the Palestinian people are also children of God, whose suffering is real and undeniable.”
Unobjectionable, sort of.
For the clincher is this: “We are deeply entrenched in our narratives of good and evil, victim and perpetrator – and we are scared.” Yes, we are all deeply entrenched in our narratives of good and evil. But why does Rabbi Brous not feel that it’s her place as a rabbi to tell her community (I know that I sound like a dinosaur to her community in saying this) which side is good and which side is evil?
Of course Israel is far from perfect, and yes, much of life in Gaza is miserable. Yet why can we not actually say what we know to be true? Why cannot a leader of the American Jewish community say that the only reason that Israel and Hamas are at war is that Hamas wants to destroy Israel? Does anyone really imagine that even a return to the 1967 borders would mollify Hamas? How do I know that it would not? Because they say so. They say that they will never end the “armed resistance” until the “Zionist entity” is utterly eradicated. Why don’t we believe them? Why this paternalistic, virtually racist, “oh they couldn’t possible mean that – it must be a cultural difference in how we express ourselves”? XXX

The “we’re all entrenched in our narratives of good and evil” worldview leaves no space for calling evil what it is. Why can we not simply say that at this moment, Israel’s enemies are evil? That they’re wrong? Why cannot someone as insightful and soulful as Rabbi Brous just say, without obfuscation, that whatever fault one finds with Israel, it is the Jewish State that for seventy years has sued for peace and the Arabs/Palestinians who have always refused. Does anyone bother pointing out to her community that whatever you think of Israel’s presence on the West Bank (or Judea/Samaria), that when Israel left Gaza, the Palestinians elected Hamas, and that when Mubarak fell, the Egyptians elected the Muslim Brotherhood? Why are these obvious facts utterly unmentionable? Because hope must spring eternal?
Yes, Jewish hope must spring eternal. And in order for it to do so, in order for us to find the strength to continue, to send our children to war and to raise another generation in a place that will tragically not know peace in any of our lifetimes, we need to tell Jews what this is. This is a battle of good versus evil, the battle between those struggling to avoid civilian casualties and those who are intentionally trying to kill civilians, the battle between those who have time and again sought peace, and those who said “no” in Khartoum in 1967 and still say “no.”
As I read Rabbi Brous’s missive, I couldn’t stop thinking about my two sons, both in the army, each doing his share to save the Jewish state from this latest onslaught. What I wanted to hear was that Rabbi Brous cares about my boys (for whom she actually babysat when we were all much younger) more than she cares about the children of terrorists. Especially this week, I wanted her to tell her community to love my family and my neighbors more than they love the people who elected Hamas and who celebrate each time a suicide bomber kills Jews. Is that really too much to ask?
But my friend left me heartbroken. If people as wise and as deeply Jewishly knowledgeable as Rabbi Brous (whom I told that this response was forthcoming) cannot come out and say that at least at this moment, we care about Israel more than we care about its enemies because we care about the future of the Jews more than almost anything else in the world, then her Jewish world and mine simply no longer inhabit overlapping universes.
I knew, even before reading Rabbi Brous’s missive, that we Israelis are surrounded by enemies. When I finished reading her, though, I understood that matters are much worse than that. Yes, we’re surrounded, but increasingly, we are also truly alone, utterly abandoned by those who ought to be unabashedly at our side.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------2)A National Crisis in Character


Here’s an excerpt from a letter I received the other day from a college professor:
“….throughout this election I discussed with students the differences between ideologies. The majority of them are on federal financial aid. They are fine with more taxes as long as they will be taken care of. It is disturbing to hear that they are willing to spend their own money on tattoos and cell phones but cannot buy the book for class until the financial aid comes in.”
For those who see social conservatism as an annoyance and argue that Republicans must purge this agenda from their party in order to survive, I say “think again.”
If Republicans want revival, we need honest focus on what’s really wrong in America and what must be done to assure that a great nation will be standing for our grandchildren and great grandchildren.
This kind of thinking is different from polls and focus groups and clever schemes to manage media and voter turnout.
Leadership is about identifying the truth, believing it, and telling it in a way that people can grasp. Then they will respond and follow.
The professor’s letter provides a snapshot, a hint, of what America’s most basic problem is today. It’s a problem of character and values.
Having lectured on over 180 college campuses over the last 20 years, I have seen exactly what the professor is talking about.
Of course government is too big. But how did it get this way? Americans vote every two years. They voted every two years during the whole period over which government grew to its current unwieldy size.
With the majority of the country now on one kind of government program or another, does anybody really think we can change this without talking about the human attitudes and values that produced it?
Democrats have a much easier problem than Republicans. They are not trying to change America. The trends and attitudes that got the whole country on welfare, that produced the moral relativism that is destroying our families and character, is the platform of the Democratic Party.
Democrat politicians just have one job. Deny the patient is sick.
Republicans, if they are going to be a real opposition party, have a much tougher job.
With all the talk about this last election being driven by demographics and turnout, the most basic point is the party and its candidate did not step up as a serious, principled opposition party.
We can’t save Medicare and Social Security. They are bankrupt. Did we hear this from the Republican candidate? We heard wishy washy words about reforming these systems so we can save them.
Did we hear anything about how our public schools - controlled by unions whose agenda is growing their benefits and promoting moral relativism among our youth- are destroying our children and our future? No.
When Ronald Reagan was first elected in November 1980, 18 percent of our babies were born to unwed mothers. Today 42 percent are. Anyone who thinks this is not of crisis of the first order can just as easily vote for a Democrat as a Republican.
Americans just re-elected a president who opposed the Supreme Court decision banning partial birth abortion. The leader of our nation thinks it should be legal in America to kill a live, fully formed infant. What does this say about America today and our future?
There may be Republicans who think that we can ignore the crisis in character and values that underlies our fiscal crisis. There may be Republicans that think if we have a better tax system it doesn’t matter if we have a country of single mothers, sexually ambiguous and confused men, and abortion and euthanasia on demand.
But ignoring these things would mean not just the end of the Republican Party. But the end of our country.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------3)How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Fiscal Cliff
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Fiscal Cliff

Obama came up with the idea of the budget compromise, or the so-called "fiscal cliff," according to Woodward's book.  He embraced it.  The Democrats wanted it because they felt like it would give them the upper hand with the Republicans, who would be so afraid of budget cuts to the military that they would cave and give in to massive redistributive social programs. 

But the threat to the Republic is not dire if the military gets $60 billion less a year.  Yes, we will have to cut out some beltway bandit advisers.  Most of them vote for big government anyway, so cutting $5-10 billion in beltway consultancy fees is not a tragedy.  Then there will be some early retirement in the military.  There will be some young guys with experience that we will have to let go.  We will not get to 14 carriers, and maybe won't be able to sustain enough to keep three in the Middle East if we need them there.  With Iran's naval ambitions, we may wind up losing a carrier or two because of the disinvestment.  A tragedy, but not a cliff.  

The strength of the military is not in the money we give them, or even the weapons supply, but in the people that we have.  If they have less, they will do the job with what they have.  It may cost us more lives or a carrier task force, it may cost the enemy more lives, but the military will try to the job it is given.  At some point, most of the American people will rise up to support the military rather than see their kids or their neighbors' kids without enough bullets and butter.  It may be that we have to experience some huge losses, like we did at Pearl Harbor, but that will sort itself out with not much of the country radioactive in the aftermath.  That will definitely be Obama's legacy, and nothing he can say or do will prevent history from blaming him on our "sleeping tiger" status.  

That leaves the other side of the argument -- how to raise taxes.  The Democrats will already have what they want -- a 39.6% tax rate on the rich.  Capital gains and dividends treated as ordinary income.  A 3.8% transaction tax.  

Big deal.  Most of the wealthy I know are already adjusting their incomes upward this year and downward next year, or changing their business model, charging more for services (that's what I plan to do), moving business overseas, or checking out and going John Galt.  A friend told me she had been to 14 going-away parties in LA in the last year.  Two other friends in Southern California have bought or are in the process of buying cattle ranches.  They see that as a way of going self-sustaining rather than producing taxable income.  

Republicans believe the rise in rates will lead to less revenue than anticipated.  Here's a chance to prove it.  They should show once and for all what happens when tax rates rise when the government is already taking in 21% of GDP and spending 25%.  Democrats think they will get more revenue next year.  Let's see.  

This change will also restore the payroll taxes to where they need to be to support Social Security and Medicare.  We need that money to pay for the $750 million that Obama took out of Medicare.  Lower and middle-income families will see their taxes go back to the Clinton rates, but the tax code will be less progressive.  And the Democrats have been wanting to go back to the Clinton rates.  Why are they objecting?

So going over the fiscal cliff is not a bad thing.  If Obama wants to lower the tax rate from 39.6% to 37% to get a more progressive tax code, I would tell him to pound sand.  Americans can pay the extra 2.6%, and the 3.8% on transactions.  Of course, there may be less transactional activity, and high transaction taxes may be hard for brokers.  But the country will survive.  This is not a cliff -- if anything, it's an incline, and the engines will have to work harder to pull the economy along. 

This "fiscal cliff" is a hoax and a slogan to sell newspapers and infomercial time. Let's get there, and then see what we must do.  If we must fund the military more, then we will.  If we must fund the EPA more, well, I think that will be a harder sell.  If we must lower payroll taxes, then I guess proponents will have to explain why they want to gut Social Security and Medicare.  If they want to lower taxes on the lower-income families, then proponents will have to explain why everyone shouldn't have a stake in the system.  But anyway you look at this, there is an opportunity for education in riding over the fiscal cliff.  Bring it on.  And Happy Thanksgiving.  

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------4)i The Canadian view of Americans:
1)Only in America would you find the

> A Canadian's view of America:
>
>
>
> TOP-10 "Only In America " Observations ~ by a Canadian:
>
> 1) Only in America , could politicians talk about the greed ofth 
>

rich at a $35,000.00 a plate campaign fund-raising event where raising their taxes is the theme.

 2) Only in America , could people claim that the government still discriminates against black Americans when they have a black President, a black Attorney General, and roughly 18% of the federal workforce is black while only 12% of the population is black.

 3) Only in America , could they have had the two people most responsible for our tax code, Timothy Geithner, the head of the Treasury Department and Charles Rangel who once ran the Ways and Means Committee, BOTH turn out to be tax cheats who are in favor of higher taxes.

  4) Only in America , can they have terrorists kill people in the name of Allah and have the media primarily react by fretting that Muslims might be harmed by the backlash.

 5) Only in America, would they make people who want to legally become American citizens wait for years in their home countries and pay tens of thousands of dollars for the privilege while we discuss letting anyone who sneaks into the country illegally just 'magically' become American citizens.

 6) Only in America , could the people who believe in balancing the budge and sticking by the country's Constitution be thought of as "extremists."

 7) Only in America , could you need to present a driver's license to cash  a check or buy alcohol, but not to vote.

  8) Only in America , could people demand the government investigate whether oil companies are gouging the public because the price of gas went up when the return on equity invested in a major U.S. oil company (Marathon Oil)  is less than half of a company making tennis shoes (Nike).

 9) Only in America , could the government collect more tax dollars from  the people than any nation in recorded history, still spend a Trillion dollars more than it has per year - for total spending of $7-Million PER MINUTE,  and complain that it doesn't have nearly enough money.

 10) Only in America , could the rich people - who pay 86% of all income taxes - be accused of not paying their "fair share" by people who don't  pay any income taxes at all.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------5)
Ten Reasons to Stay Bullish On Stocks
by Alexander Green, Investment U Chief Investment Strategist
Alexander Green
Conservatives are disappointed about the outcome of the national elections. Investors are troubled about the recent volatility in the market. And just about everyone is skeptical about the outlook for the economy - and the Middle East.

But that doesn't mean you should avoid owning shares of great companies - or move your money into low-yielding cash and bonds. There are plenty of good reasons this bull market can continue well into 2013 and beyond. Here are just 10 of them:
  1. You shouldn't fight the Fed. We can argue about the proper role of the Federal Reserve or whether we ought to even have one. But history shows it doesn't make sense to invest counter to the Central Bank when it is in an accommodative mode. And with the Fed buying up mortgage securities and long-term bonds to keep interest rates down, this is as accommodative as it gets.
  2. Short-term interest rates are zero. Hyper-low rates make it cheaper for businesses to borrow and easier for consumers to spend. They also make stocks attractive relative to cash and short-term bonds.
  3. Inflation is still M.I.A. Yes, I know, prices are up if you're pumping gas, visiting a doctor, or putting a kid through college. But have you checked the price of a computer, a cell phone, or a flat-panel TV lately? Also, the biggest purchase most consumers ever make is a house - and those prices are definitely down.
  4. Housing prices have finally stabilized. There are plenty of pending foreclosures still, but take a closer look. Nationally, the average discount on a foreclosure in September was only 8% below market value, according to an analysis by Zillow. And many foreclosure sales are creating multiple bids. Clearly, housing is in a healing mode.
  5. Credit card debt is at a 10-year low. Still worried about overleveraged consumers? That's so 2008. Debit card purchases are up. Visa and MasterCard balances are down. And American Express has seen loan balances fall 73% from the peak in early 2010.
  1. The energy revolution is underway. Utilities, factories and truck manufacturers are switching from oil to much cheaper natural gas. Slower growth in emerging markets is lessening the demand for crude, too. And technology-driven advances in everything from fracking to oil-sands development are also positive factors.
  2. Corporate balance sheets are pristine. The federal government is spending money like a sailor with four hours of shore leave. But it's a very different situation with U.S. corporations. They have been paying down debt and refinancing it at lower levels. Plus, they are sitting on roughly $2 trillion in cash. Uncle Sam may be going broke. But U.S. blue chips are not.
  3. Corporate profits are at record levels. U.S.-based multinationals like Caterpillar, General Electric and Apple have decoupled from the sluggish U.S. economy. They are capitalizing on exciting new markets in China, India, Brazil and Russia. That won't change any time soon.
  4. Valuations are compelling, too. Historically, the S&P 500 has sold at 16 times trailing earnings. Today it sells for roughly 12 times earnings. There is plenty of value to be found in today's market.
  5. The Santa Claus Rally and the January Effect. Yes, the trend hasn't been so friendly since the national elections. But the correction in the Nasdaq and the near-correction in the Dow may be setting us up for what is historically the best seasonal performance for the stock market: early December to mid-January. Investors and traders often regret sitting this period out.
You may be bummed that Obama is still in the White House. But you should know that the stock market has performed as well under Democratic administrations as Republican ones. (And the Dow is up more than 75% since Obama took office.)

You may be bummed because the economy is still weak. But you should also understand that there is no short-term correlation between GDP growth and stock market performance. Perversely, stocks often rally during the bad times and sell off during the good. (The last three and a half years are a fine example of a weak economy presiding over a roaring stock market.)

In short, if you can't be persuaded to invest in stocks during a period of zero interest rates, low inflation, record corporate profits, pristine balance sheets and cheap valuations, there's probably not much I can say to change your mind.

Also, to be fair, there is one positive to sitting in cash during the most disrespected bull market in history and it's this: If you reinvest those money market dividends each month, you will double your money in just 3,200 years.

Personally, I don't like to think that long term. Plus, I plan on spending my money before then.

Good Investing,

Alex
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------6) 6) 6)Why ObamaCare Is Still No Sure Thing

The majority of state governors are Republicans, and they have the power to disarm the health-care law.

By JAMES C. CAPRETTA AND YUVAL LEVIN


Champions of ObamaCare want Americans to believe that the president's re-election ended the battle over the law. It did no such thing. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act won't be fully repealed while Barack Obama is in office, but the administration is heavily dependent on the states for its implementation.

Republicans will hold 30 governorships starting in January, and at last week's meeting of the Republican Governors Association they made it clear that they remain highly critical of the health law. Some Republican governors—including incoming RGA Chairman Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, Ohio's John Kasich, Wisconsin's Scott Walker and Maine's Paul LePage—have already said they won't do the federal government's bidding. Several Democratic governors, including Missouri's Jay Nixon and West Virginia's Earl Ray Tomblin, have also expressed serious concerns.

Talk of the law's inevitability is intended to pressure these governors into implementing it on the administration's behalf. But states still have two key choices to make that together will put them in the driver's seat: whether to create state health-insurance exchanges, and whether to expand Medicaid. They should say "no" to both.
At its core, ObamaCare is a massive entitlement expansion. Between vastly increased Medicaid eligibility and new premium subsidies, it is expected to bring 30 million more people onto the federal government's entitlement rolls. The law anticipates that the states will take on the burden of implementing the expansions, but states can opt out of both.
Running the exchanges would be an administrative nightmare for states, requiring a complicated set of rules, mandates, databases and interfaces to establish eligibility, funnel subsidies, and facilitate purchases. All of this would have to take place under broad and often incoherent statutory requirements and federal regulations that have yet to be written.