NON-FICTION – ESSAY – HUMOROUS: Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #186 (6/8/2024): MALDIVES N’ MEXICO

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #186 (6/8/2024): Maldives n’ Mexico

airs June 8, 2024 on Dave’s Gone By. watch here: https://davesgoneby.net/?p=83337  

I am mmmmarveling at the news this week involving two countries with mmmmarkedly different responses to the mmmmadness in the Mmmmiddle East. I am talking about the Maldives and Mexico. One of them is meretricious, the other marvelous. 

So as the patient says to the doctor: “Bad news first.” The Maldives. It even has “mal,” a prefix meaning “bad,” in its own name. What are the Maldives? They’re a teeny Republic in South Asia, about 115 square miles of land with the rest in the Indian Ocean. And considering all the things Indians do in the ocean, it’s best not to drink the water. Or visit the Maldives. 

Not that you could visit the Maldives right now if you were an Israeli. President Mohamed Muizzu — who belongs in a zoo — has banned anyone with an Israeli passport from entering the country, this in response to the war in Gaza. Why any Jew would visit this place in the first place is a puzzlement. Maldives is a country so Muslim that the practice of any other religion is forbidden by law. This is also a land that not only prohibits homosexuality but reprimands anybody kissing or even holding hands in public. So, basically, if you wonder what the Bahamas or Aruba would be like if they took away the fun and relaxation and replaced it with totalitarian jihad, you’ve got the Maldives. 

In 2023 about 5,000 Jews visited the various Maldive islands. Maybe they were Orthodox and appreciated the modest-clothing rules and pork-free eating. Maybe they just wanted to watch other Semites inflict suffering on themselves for once instead of being tormented by others. Even prior to this ban, only 500 Yids Maldived themselves this year, and one hopes that goyim, in solidarity with Israel, will put Maldives on their “fuck-it” list. But hey, there’s sand and palm trees and, thanks to climate change, more and more and more water. It’s an Arcadia—and a perfect spot to relocate a few thousand displaced Palestinians! What? Dr. Muizzu? Not returning their calls? Well, at least you support them in theory. 

But what gives me joy in reality is the result of a Presidential election held this week in Mexico. Replacing current honcho Andrés Manuel López Obrador is someone with a shorter name, thank God, but also a highly promising name. Winning a landslide victory is Mexico’s first female leader and first Jewish leader: Claudia Sheinbaum! I’m not kidding — Claudia Sheinbaum! Her heritage is a mix of Ashkenazic Lithuanian and Sephardic Bulgarian, and she’s a scientist with a PhD—a Jewish doctor will be running Mexico!

They should get her to deal with climate change in the Maldives because she’s an expert—she was part of a Nobel Prize-winning UN think tank on the topic—and she’s pro-choice, pro LGBT, big on mass transit and bicycle paths—yeah, she’s kind of a lefty. And a landsman. 

The cheeriest aspect of this political event is that despite Jews being despised seemingly everywhere in the world, Mexicans looked beyond that and picked a Shein-a maidel! She was the outgoing president’s choice, and because the peso has been in decent shape, and because the drug cartels have been killing only every third tourist, voters are giving Sheiny the sheeny a shot.

Please let us support her by purchasing all things Mexican: jumping beans, refried beans, bootleg t-shirts of Mr. Bean. Also, spend your vacation dollars South of the Border. And I don’t mean getting a pubic wax, I mean Guadalajara, Cancun, Oaxaca, Acapulco, and lest we forget, charming Ciudad Nezahualcóyotl.

Oh, my friends, we are forever asking: Is it good for the Jews? If Judaism has taught us anything, it’s that things can change in a blink. But right now: viva México! And Maldives? ¡Vete a la mierda! 

This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York. ¡Arriba!

(c)2024 TotalTheater. All rights reserved.

—> https://shalomdammit.wordpress.com/2024/06/05/rabbi-sol-solomons-rabbinical-reflection-186-6-8-2024-maldives-n-mexico-lefkowitz/

–> https://davelefkowitzwriting.wordpress.com/2024/06/06/non-fiction-essay-humorous-rabbi-sol-solomons-rabbinical-reflection-186-6-8-2024-maldives-n-mexico-lefkowitz/

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NON-FICTION – ESSAY – HUMOROUS: Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #185 (4/27/2024): THREE CHEERS FOR THE NYPD

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #185 (5/4/2024): Three Cheers for the NYPD

airs May 4, 2024 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube video: https://youtu.be/qAjSS1MKI9g

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for early May 2024. 

Credit where credit is due. And I don’t mean the credit cards where I owe 30 percent interest on a sofa I bought in 2014. No, I’m talking about: let’s applaud a job well done in a tremendously difficult situation.

Ever since George Floyd — you know, the drug addict, thief, armed robber, and counterfeiter who was horribly murdered by overzealous law enforcement — ever since that subject for statues became a symbol for systemic racism, cops have been betwixt and between. On the one hand, they face loathing from communities where, admittedly, they behaved badly for decades. On the other, they’re expected to be models of self-control while putting their lives on the line. Picture trying to do your job when the very people you are tasked to protect are shouting to defund you. Imagine that you take pride in serving the Big Apple, yet you’re automatically lumped in with the bad apples.

And now imagine that you’ve been called to a college campus where hundreds of deluded 20-somethings — whose age alone would mark them as enemies of authority — imagine that these liberal loonies and BIPOC buttheads have overtaken a major American university. As part of their tantrum, they’ve camped out on the lawn, blocked access to thoroughfares, and even vandalized a building. The school President has hithered and dithered, not wanting to spark violence or squelch free speech, but terrified to lose benefactors who might balk at endowing a university whose main export has become anti-Semitism. 

By the time Columbia’s leader, Minouche Shafik, realized things had gotten out of control, things had gotten out of control. What to do? What to do? Let the monkeys run amok? Surrender Hamilton Hall, Lewisohn Hall, Kravis Hall, the ironically named “Harmony Hall” — all to a bunch of tent-pitching yahoos who couldn’t find Gaza on a map, a map in a bookstore, a bookstore in a city, and a city on their non-stop TikTok feeds?

At a certain point, order must be restored. It doesn’t matter that the disrupters were non-violent, and it wouldn’t matter if they were there supportingIsrael against the demons of Hamas. They were asked to leave and refused. They were commanded to leave, and instead, smashed windows and home-invaded the administration building.

That’s when you send in the cops. With riot gear. 

And that, finally, is what President Shafik did. After a week of letting the hyenas run the zoo, she called in the NYPD who, with exceptional restraint and by-the-book behavior, broke up Hamas on the Hudson. Crying sophomores, shrieking professors, double-talking outside agitators — rounded up, plunked on paddy wagons, and slapped on the wrists, alas, but at least temporarily out of commission.

This, my friends, is how it’s done. Because, God knows, the cops showed more self-control than I would have to these Morningside morons. The first one to shout “Free Gaza” would have to do it through a mouth full of broken teeth. The first holding a “Divest” sign would have to hoist it with cracked knuckles. And the first Jew tweeting “Cease Fire Now!” would have so much mace sprayed in her face, her eyes would turn all four colors of the Palestinian flag. 

This is why I am not a cop. This is also why the New York Police Department — and every Blue brigade that’s been summoned to these conflagrations — deserves oodles of kudos for the job they did and the way they did it. I’m sure many of these officers agreed with the protesters — we’re not talking Einsteins here, on either side of the grass — but they followed reasonable directions in a professional manner, and they deserve our gratitude and admiration. 

And when the green-tent vermin swarm back onto the lawns of Columbia, NYU, Yale, UCLA, or any other ivy-choked nest of minacious radicalism, let the liars on the left be met head on by what’s right. 

This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.

(c)2024 TotalTheater. All rights reserved.

—> https://davesgoneby.net/?p=69590

—> https://youtu.be/qAjSS1MKI9g

—> https://shalomdammit.wordpress.com/?p=2603

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NON-FICTION – ESSAY – HUMOROUS: Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #181 (1/11/2024): NEW JOKES

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #180 (1/11/2024): New Jokes

airs Jan. 13, 2024 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: https://youtu.be/mk70q6FrnN8

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection to start the new year. A week or so after the new year. 

What better way to get 2024 rolling than to have you, my beloved acolytes, rolling in the aisles with hilarious punch lines? I will share with you some Jewish jokes — brand new! written by yours truly! Or, if you hate them, written by Jo Koy.

Please note that if you are politically correct or take offense easily, these jokes are not for you. Then again, what jokes are?

Joke number one: Two Arabs are shopping for prayer rugs at a giant bazaar in Jerusalem. A little Jewish shop owner comes out and says, “Please! We have the best rugs! You must see!”

The Arabs are skeptical — what does this Jewish merchant know about prayer mats? — but they say, “Sure. What’ve you got?”

The salesman rolls out two small rugs and says, “My brother and I, we don’t sell any old schmattes like the others places. These are magical flying carpets.”

“Oh, come on,” the Arabs say.

“No, please! These were woven by the purest virgins and blessed by the highest Imams in all of Turkey and Iran. Sit!”

So the first Arab kneels on the carpet and waits. And waits. He says, “It’s nice, but it’s not flying.”

“Oh,” says the Jew. “That’s because you haven’t said the secret words. You have to think really hard of a phrase that has meaning to you. Whisper those words into the carpet. Then, when you’re ready, shout the phrase as loud as you can, and you will take flight!”

The Arab rolls his eyes. But then he shrugs, thinks a moment, leans forward, and whispers into the fringes of the rug. 

“Get in position!,” calls the merchant. “And scream it out!” 

The Arab takes hold and yells, “Free Palestine!” Suddenly, a big wind starts up, and the carpet rises off the ground, two feet, three feet, ten feet in the air. “This is incredible!” says the Arab. “Ahmed, you have to try it!” 

His friend gets on the other carpet, whispers to it, then sits up and yells, “Death to Israel!” Another wind gust comes, and his carpet goes five feet, ten feet, fifteen feet high. 

“How do I go up like him?” says the first Arab.

“You can both go much higher,” calls the Israeli. “You just have to close your eyes, concentrate, and keep shouting your secret words over and over.”

“Race you to the sky!” says Ahmed, as both Arabs close their eyes, think real hard, and start screaming, “Free Palestine!” “Death to Israel!” “Free Palestine!” “Death to Israel!” Both carpets go higher and higher: 30 feet, 50 feet, 70 feet off the ground.

The shop owner’s brother comes out from behind the counter and says, “Shmuley, should I do it now?”

“Nah,” says Shmuley. “Wait till they’re 100 feet up. Then turn off the blowers.”

Now, what do we learn from this joke? Well, first of all, if a person wants to believe something strongly enough, he or she or they will put aside rational judgment and go with it. This not only explains religion, and how we all worship to fairy stories written thousands of years ago, but it’s the reason we leave the house without an umbrella, even after the weatherman’s warned us: 60 percent chance of rain. We think: “It’s not gonna rain the ten minutes I’m outside.” It will, it does, you’re soaked.

Next joke: an Englishman, a Frenchman, and a Palestinian all die and find themselves at the gates of hell. The Englishman peeks in for a moment and says, “Well, it seems rather unpleasant, but so long as I can have my afternoon tea and spend the evening watching telly, I should get by all right.” 

The Frenchman opens the gate of hell, wanders around a bit, then storms back, saying, “Mon dieu! Zis is an outrage! Ze heat, ze hard work! Soon as I can, I am starting ze labor union and everyone goes on strike!” 

Finally, it’s the Palestinian’s turn. He takes a deep breath, throws open the gates, stomps in, and marches straight up to the devil. Then he says, “Honey, I’m home!”

This joke does not play well on college campuses, but then again, I do not play well on college campuses. They see me as a brutal colonizer, which is unfair. I’ve had many brutal colonics, but that’s not what they mean. 

Anyway, these are difficult and ridiculous times for Jews everywhere. Our enemies surround us, sometimes they are us, and many are so naive they think they’re helping us by helping our enemies. As I said: ridiculous times. The best way to muddle through is to laugh — sometimes through gritted teeth.

Hey, how many Hamas militants can you stuff into an open grave? 

I don’t know, but I sure hope we find out.

This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.

(c)2024 TotalTheater. All rights reserved.

—> https://youtu.be/mk70q6FrnN8

—> https://shalomdammit.wordpress.com/2024/01/10/rabbi-sol-solomons-rabbinical-reflection-181-1-13-2024-new-jokes-lefkowitz/

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NON-FICTION – ESSAY – HUMOROUS: Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #148 (8/6/2017): Roger Waters

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #148 (8/6/2017): Roger Waters

(aired Aug. 5, 2017 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C60YhWtS73Y)

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of August 6, 2017.

Today, my friends, I go swimming in foul waters. Brackish waters. Roger Waters! The former head of Pink Floyd is now a solo artist with delusions of relevance.

Waters has long been critical of Israel’s position vis-à-vis the Palestinians. According to Mr. Stink Floyd, Israel is always the bad guy: occupying land, denying Palis of their rights, existing. And Waters has made no attempt to hide his contempt for the only democracy—and sometimes the only civilized society—in the Middle East.

Who can forget the 2010 Waters concert, where his animated set design included B-1 bombers dropping mogen davids? Or, worse, the 2013 concerts, where, instead of launching beachballs and t-shirts into the crowd, he sent an inflatable pig with a Jewish star on it hovering over bewildered baby boomers, who just wanted him to shut up and play “The Wall.” And that’s the problem in a nutshell—or a nutcase. People still want to hear his old music, so that gives Waters a huge platform for his babble.

I’ll even grant that he thinks he means well. To Roger Waters, Israel is a torture state, an oppressive regime that doesn’t let a bunch of poor, bedraggled Arabs blow themselves up in peace. He’s not against Israel, he says; he doesn’t hate Jews; he’s merely a rabid anti-fascist. Except for someone who supposedly has nothing against Hebes, Waters takes every opportunity to savage our homeland. He equates Benjamin Netanyahu’s acceptance of Jewish settlements on Jewish land with South Africa’s apartheid and feels both should be countered the same way. As such, Waters has become the poster boy for BDS. You know BDS: Bondage, Domination, and Stupidity. Or more officially: Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions against Israel. In other words, hurt Israel financially, and the Jews will just slink off into the Red Sea and let the Palestinians take over land that they’ll just turn back into desert.

At least BDS isn’t the usual Moslem protest. Instead of flying planes into office walls, they just want to build a commerce wall around Israel. As part of his responsibilities being the BDS butt boy, Roger Waters has called on other musicians to avoid Eretz Yisroel and cancel any concerts they have planned there. In response, Thom Yorke and Radiohead, bless their hearts, went to Tel Aviv and played their longest concert in eleven years. Now granted, even they equivocated: “Playing in a country isn’t the same as endorsing its government,” Yorke said in a statement. “We don’t endorse Netanyahu any more than Trump, but we still play in America.”

Well, okay, I’ll accept Radiohead’s defensive half over Pink Floyd’s ass whole. And lest we think Roger Waters is anything other than a Goebbels with a guitar, look no further than his interview with the blatantly anti-Israel CounterPunch magazine. Waters complained about the “extraordinarily powerful” Jewish lobby in America, which he says makes it hard for other musicians to back him in his fulminating foolishness. Waters also bitched about Israel’s “right-wing rabbinate” supposedly causing, quote “the ethnic cleansing and systematic racist apartheid Israeli regime.” Ethnic cleansing. Right. Because Arabs are systematically murdered by the Israeli government for no other reason than the towels on their heads. Sure. That they start riots, kill soldiers, and blow themselves to pieces in cafes has nothing to do with Israel’s distrust of their breed.

I’m not saying Israel is perfect, or that the Prime Minister is right about everything. After all, a couple of weeks ago I, myself, blasted Netanyahu for reneging on a plan to make a small bit of the Wailing Wall co-ed. But I also understand what Israel is up against: ongoing hostility from the very neighbors who should take in the miserable Palestinians but won’t. For 80 years, little Israel has made the best of a situation that the Arabs have consistently made worse.

And Roger Waters? He won’t play Milk and Honey City? Let’s take a look at the schedule for his 2002 world tour, shall we? We shall. Let’s see, he started in South Africa in February. Well, there’s a country with a glorious history of justice. Oh, and then he moved on to Chile—no problems there. Argentina, which at the time was run by that bastion of morality, Carlos Menem. Let’s see…Brazil (where I’m sure Waters felt at home with the other Nazis), Venezuela (ditto), Mexico (because drugs and rock and roll do mix), Japan—because hegemonic nationalism was never an issue there. Oh, and then it was off to Beirut. Uh huh. And Moscow and Warsaw and Munich and Frankfurt and Stuttgart and Oberhausen and Vienna. Because when have Germany and Austria ever had a race problem?

A million times I have said that Israel is a Jewish state, and it is also a teeny-weeny state, so if the Palestinians don’t like living there, they should gas up their camels and move to any other Arab country that would have them. Which is, of course, none. Which is the real tragedy that putzes like Roger Waters, Susan Sarandon, Amy Goodman, and Javier Bardem never acknowledge. There is no occupation. There is a miniscule Jewish country that every Arab wants to level, and when the Jews fight back, or get strategic with blockades, the lefties wring their hankies and blame the good guys.

If I sound especially grim and intolerant, understand that I am writing this only a couple of days after three Israelis were stabbed to death by Palestinians in the West Bank, and a day after Arabs attacked the Israeli embassy in Jordan. Why the violence? The Palis were pissed off because Israel put in metal detectors by the Temple Mount. That started a riot, and three Arabs were shot by Israeli police. Yes, using deadly force against rioters is unfortunate, but over metal detectors? Something designed to keep everybody safe no matter what the religion? When I go in an airport, I’ve gotta take off my coat, my shoes, my belt, my watch. It’s a pain in the ass, but do I riot? No. And let’s not forget the reason we all have to get naked at JFK in the first place: the Arabs!

So Roger Troubled Waters, feel free to stay away from Israel. Plenty of bands who have actually made good music over the past forty years will take your place. And if you want to be the change you hope to see in the world, howsabout looking in the mirror? You were in Pink Floyd where the lead songwriter turned into an insane recluse, and the guy who replaced him can’t get along with you. You’ve been married four times—and divorced four times. And you’re an atheist, so even God has washed his hands of you.

You are the Pooper at the Gates of Dumb. You are the Atom Heartless Motherfucker. You’re the Dark Side of the Moron. The Final Cunt. A More-Than-Momentary Lapse of Reason. All in all, you’re just another Prick in the Wailing Wall, and I wish you weren’t here.

This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches, in Great Neck, New York.

(c) 2017 TotalTheater. All rights reserved.

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REVIEW – THEATER: Disgraced (2015 Broadway)

DISGRACED

***

reviewed by David Lefkowitz

(This review was first published, Jan. 2015, in my monthly column for Long Island Pulse magazine: http://lipulse.com/2015/01/23/stage-disgraced/, with the subtitle “A Broadway dinner party serves up food for thought”)

 

As bad as her dinner parties always were on the Mary Tyler Moore Show, Moore had nothing on Amir Kapoor, who hosts a cozy gathering in Ayad Akhtar’s Disgraced, now playing at Broadway’s Lyceum Theater. A successful lawyer of Indian and Pakistani descent, Amir (played by Hari Dhillon) is bucking for a partnership but worries that his Arab-sounding name and tenuous connection to a jailed imam have put him on the firm’s uh-oh list. His blonde wife Emily (Gretchen Mol), a budding artist, proves supportive, but she may be more entranced by the exoticism of his heritage than of his proudly American, upwardly mobile lifestyle.

Invited to dinner are Jory (Karen Pittman), a black coworker at Amir’s firm, and her husband, Isaac (Josh Radnor of How I Met Your Mother), a Jewish art dealer with an interest in Emily’s work and, possibly, Emily. Fireworks ensue, with Amir finding himself not only betrayed but stunned that his assimilated status—and dislike of most things Islamic—don’t shield him from prejudice.

Disgraced moves swiftly and keeps audiences buzzing. The show’s clash of cultural norms with under-the-surface discontent made the play a natural for last year’s Pulitzer Prize and also brought a sprinkling of Middle-Eastern faces to the aisles—refreshing, considering that Broadway’s usual Semitic contingent is composed of a rather different tribe.

The shock of Disgraced, however, lies not its courage in tackling issues like Sept 11 and Islamophobia, but in its almost relentlessly negative view of Arab and Muslim culture. Amir says little about Islam that isn’t poisonous and his toxicity goes off the charts once his career and marriage are threatened. Dark themes are not unusual in a drama, but author Akhtar goes even further, having Amir explode and exhibit the worst aspects of the very background he’s trying to suppress. It’s as if the playwright agrees with his protagonist’s belief that hateful behavior is somehow ingrained in Muslim DNA.

Akhtar admitted in a 2014 interview that his writing influences include Chaim Potok, Saul Bellow, Philip Roth, Woody Allen, and Jerry Seinfeld. As such, I suppose that if men from Mars came down to explore Times Square this season, and they caught Nathan Lane in It’s Only a Play and Akhtar’s Disgraced, they’d be in the odd position of seeing Broadway’s most brilliant Jewish comedian and most probing Jewish playwright, neither of whom is Jewish.

Yes, Disgraced pushes its share of easy buttons, and the matinee crowd with which I saw the play proved risible when gasping audibly at melodramatic tropes that were old in Aeschylus’s day. However, mercifully, Akhtar is no obfuscating Albee or convoluting Kushner. His themes are clear, his plot coheres and, most importantly, he keeps a viewer wondering what shoe will drop next. No, Akhtar hasn’t penned The Great Muslim Play; he’s simply created an absorbing, lively evening at the theater. And there’s no disgrace in that.

*

Staged by Kimberly Senior, Disgraced ran Oct. 23, 2014-March 1, 2015 at Broadway’s Lyceum Theater.

*

BYLINE:

David Lefkowitz founded TotalTheater.com, co-publishes Performing Arts Insider, edits the theater section of Stagebuddy.com, and hosts the Dave’s Gone By radio program (davesgoneby.com). He hopes his latest play, The Miracle of Long Johns, will be coming to a theater near you.

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NON-FICTION – ESSAY – HUMOROUS: Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #104 (8/3/14): GREAT GUNS IN GAZA

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #104 (8/3/2014): Great Guns in Gaza

aired Aug. 2, 2014 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://youtu.be/aNHPRoAQWFc.

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of August 3rd, 2014.

If you play with fire, you’re gonna get burned. If you keep throwing gasoline on that fire, you’re gonna get burned blacker than the New York Knicks in a lunar eclipse. Or, put another way, if you beat up your wife ten times, each time she will forgive you, she’ll wear a band-aid and concealer, and she’ll live in fear until the next flare up. But on the eleventh time, if you haven’t killed her yet, she’s gonna call a friend of a friend named Nunzio, and, for a fee, he will relocate you – to the middle of the East River.

It’s the law of “enough is enough.” If you are the nation of Israel, and surrounding your borders are a people who have sworn to drive you into the sea . . . These people fire rockets, indiscriminately and daily, into your heimat. If you’re Israel, you tolerate a dozen rockets, a hundred rockets, a thousand fakakteh rockets that usually land in the middle of nowhere, thank God. But rocket number 1,001? It’s time to pull your Incredible Hulk costume out of the closet and kick some ass.

Three weeks ago, as I’m sure you recall, three innocent Jewish teenagers were slaughtered when they hitchhiked a little too far into Gaza. This was not just another act of violence – you know, like Saturday night in Chicago – this was a flashpoint. It was the moment the Israeli government could say, “You know what? We give the Palestinians the Gaza Strip in exchange for peace, and they give us our teenagers back in pieces. Enough with their rockets, enough with the terrorism, enough with the bullshit about Hamas being a legitimate political organization; it’s time to open up a can of whoop-tuchas on this enemy that means us only harm and destruction. Bring it.”

In my previous Rabbinical Reflection, which I’m sure you’ve nearly memorized and put on flash cards for easy reference, I urged the IDF to take action in Gaza. To avenge the death of those boys and give the camel jockeys payback for years of tears, fears and jeering Emirs. I am thrilled, therefore, that Benjamin Netanyahu gathered up his army into a white-and-blue fist, and they’ve been pounding the Gaza goons ever since.

Dead civilians? Unfortunate casualties? For sure, and what a shame. It’s called collateral damage, and every war has `em. And the Arab teenager that Israeli extremists abducted and killed in retaliation? No one’s proud of that. I’ll even go as far as saying that Israel hasn’t gone out of its way every single time to make sure they’re only blowing up militants and not bystanders two feet away from militants. But when did the Arabs ever make a distinction between soldiers and regular folk? Bombs on buses? Shrapnel in cafes? Mass murders of Olympic athletes and commercial airplanes slamming into the tallest buildings in New York? It’s a good thing I’m not an army General, because I’d napalm every speck of Gaza with a tent on it.

And where does American stand in all this? It’s honestly hard to tell. Barack Obama and John Kerry are talking the left-wing, liberal talk of “stop the fighting now, it’s a humanitarian crises, Israel and Hamas need to cease fire immediately and sit down at the table because there’s wrongs on both sides” – all the typical crybaby blah-blah that negates the basic fact that Israel tends to be in the right 90 percent of the time. 

However, words and actions are entirely different things, especially in diplomacy. And for all the handwringing blather as a sop to the “Democracy Now” crowd, the Obama administration has, until this point, watched from the sidelines and let Israel do what it has to do. Thank you, Mr. President. If our Secretary of State wants to appease the Muslims by making noises about how Israel is being too harsh and causing too much suffering to the poor, innocent Palestinians, no problem. Just give Yisroel time to collapse the tunnels, kill the killers and drag Hamas, begging and desperate, to the outhouse of surrender. By eliminating terrorists and religious fanatics, Israel is doing America favor after favor, and I honestly believe Obama and company realize that – no matter how many times Republican bloggers call him “Hussein” and make him sound like the love child of Josef Stalin and Ayatollah Khomeini.

It’s the nature of Israel that whenever we do strike back against those who oppress us, we have to apologize for killing more of them than they of us. When our missiles hit their targets, when 100 Palestinians die for every Israeli soldier, that’s unseemly somehow. It should be more balanced. We should die more just to ratchet up the sympathy vote. Sorry, Charlie. The goal is to weaken Hamas and make Israel safe from attack. If that means bombing Gaza back to the stone age, so be it. Besides, Arab children have proven quite skillful at throwing stones, so it’s right up their alley. Just don’t expect to throw stones at Jews anymore, because we will fire them right back at a hundred times the speed.

Go Israel! Go Bibi! And remember what Abba Eban said, “It is better to be disliked than pitied.” I’m both, but I’m beyond giving a crap.

This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.

(c) 2014 TotalTheater. All rights reserved.

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NON-FICTION – ESSAY – HUMOROUS: Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #100 (5/18/2014): BOKO HARAM

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #100 (5/18/2014): Boko Haram

aired May 17, 2014 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vy1Wthfvjvo&feature=youtu.be. https://davesgoneby.net/?p=27688

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of May 18th, 2014.

Well, the Muslims are at it again. And this time they’re not in Syria, or Pakistan or Saudi Arabia, or any of those other countries where oil wells turned the third world into the first world without giving a second thought to the first amendment. No, today’s Mohammedian mess comes from Nigeria, of all places.

The Islamic militant organization Boko Haram, which I believe is the African word for “Procol Harum,” has spent its quality time causing terrorism and assassinations to the tune of 10,000 dead in the region over the last decade. Nobody every heard of them until now because, well, let’s face it, a bunch of African schvartzes? We have our own problems. But now they’ve gone too far: they’ve kidnapped a bunch of nubile young girls. It’s kind of like when the New York Post has a headline that someone stabbed a co-ed. You could rape a dozen fat, immigrant, Eskimo women, and you won’t even get a line in the Weird but True column. But you knife a cute co-ed, the Post has cover coverage for a week.

So now Boko Haram, this cancerous collective of terror cells – which is what cancer is, come to think of it – Boko Haram has leapt into New York Post nirvana by attacking an all-girls school and kidnapping more than 200 female students. And just to show that it isn’t personal, just business, they’ve threatened to sell the girls into slavery. I know – it’s horrible, it’s inhumane, and let me tell you, with Merry Maids charging a hundred bucks a week, I’m tempted.

But seriously, what a shock that the religion of peace would turn out to be the religion of 200 pieces of Nigerian ass. Governments around the world are working to coax the kidnappers into behaving decently, which is kind of like asking a gorilla to stop throwing banana crap. In response, Boko Haram said, “Sure, we’ll release the young ladies – in a trade for all of our terrorists that you have locked up.” Sound familiar? Ask Israel how many murderers it had to exchange just bring a few soldiers home.

Wisely, the Nigerian government has rejected the “teens-for-terrorists” swap meet, though they are open to broad negotiations – they just won’t negotiate for the broads. Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan – and I’m not making that up, the guy sounds like he should have a second-act number in “Guys and Dolls” – Goodluck Jonathan is meeting with other world leaders to discuss ways to put the loco Bokos in their place. Hopefully, that won’t include meeting their demands, appeasing them or treating them like people.

Oh, and big thumbs up to the vigilantes who rose up against these Islamic Fundamurderers last week and started taking back their village. I’m sure they said to themselves, “Hey, the government won’t do it, and the U.N. won’t do it, so let’s grab some torches and pitchforks and look for Imams.”

Of course, I have a much better and safer way of getting revenge on the Nigerians. We send them all an email, and the email says, “Congratulations! You have won $5,000,000 which is being held for you in trust by my uncle, the King of Nebraska. In order to claim your lotto earnings, just send us a bank transfer for $8,000 along with three dozen Nigerian teenage nymphettes, and you’ll get your check in the mail faster than you can say (click language). PS: If you find Casey Kasem, we’ll throw in a toaster. Sincerely, Prince Chaim, Omaha.”

I know, it’s a cruel trick. But payback’s a bitch. So come on, Boko Haram, release the bitches.

This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.

(c) 2014 TotalTheater. All rights reserved.

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NON-FICTION – ESSAY – HUMOROUS: Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #054 (1/27/13): The BATTLE OF ALGIERS

Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #54 (1/27/2013): THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS

Aired January 26, 2013 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnXLGyFEdC0

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of January 26th, 2013.

Let’s say I go to the supermarket and buy a box of donuts. “Why am I eating that?”, you ask. “Well,” I say, “donuts are a health food.” “Health food?” I hear you gasp. “But they’re loaded with sugar and white flour.” “Yes, but they’re a health food,” I reply. “But they’re glazed with chocolate coating made out of corn syrup,” you counter. “I don’t care, they’re a health food,” I persist. “But look at the box!” you yell. “Half the ingredients are red dyes and preservatives and fiberglass insulation.” “You’re making wayyy too much of that,” I say. “Donuts are a health food.”

And now you start screaming, “But if you eat donuts, you get fat, your teeth rot, eventually you’ll risk heart disease and diabetes.” “Oh, don’t be so politically incorrect,” I say. “Donuts are a health food.”

Sounds crazy, right? Like I should have my head examined for not admitting what’s plainly in front of my face – or in my stomach.

Fine. How many times have we heard left-wing pundits and middle-east apologists say that Islam is the religion of peace? That’s the big slogan – religion of peace. And no amount of 9/11’s or Munichs or Lockerbies or Benghazis will convince these people that maybe Islam isn’t such a friendly how-do-ya-do.

“Oh, it’s just a small faction; it’s just the radicals,” comes the response. True. The millions and millions of Muslims in this world aren’t out there blowing up embassies any more than every NRA member is out there shooting up schools. However, no other religion since Christianity in the Middle Ages has caused so much needless, vicious and sociopathic bloodshed. Except, perhaps, the Death to Disco Movement of the 1970s, but they had a point.

So this time, the horror springs from Algeria – instead of Iran or Pakistan or Egypt or Syria – or, well, point to a map of the Middle East and find an Arab country that isn’t a killing field. Last week, a hostage crisis in Algeria resulted in more than two dozen civilian dead, including one American. Plus, 32 dead hostage takers, or, as I like to call them, refuse.

The Algerian government is being blamed for jumping the gun on its rescue mission. After three days of a bloody stand-off, Algerian troops stormed the gas plant that was under siege – which resulted in pretty much everyone dying. Mainly because the terrorists began executing the hostages once the fun started.

Other countries are now saying, “Oh, we weren’t informed, we could have done it better, we could have ended this with more survivors, blah di bloo di blah.” Algeria’s position is, “Sorry, we don’t negotiate with terrorists.” And to that, may I add, especially not terrorists who are killing the hostages anyway, who are strapped to the gills with explosives, and who come from a radical culture where suicide is the expected outcome of a violent event. Kind of tough to negotiate with someone who actually wants you to shoot him. It’s like going up to an alcoholic at a party and saying, “Look, I can either drive you home, or I can pour you another scotch.” That’s a win-win either way for the booze-hound.

Terrorists are sick, desperate people who can be dealt with in only the most extreme, desperate ways. Like full-on raids, waterboarding and being forced to watch “Teen Mom 2.”

We can mince words all we want so as not to offend Saudi Arabia and Qatar and UAE and other countries that could afford to buy the Statue of Liberty and sell it back to us in pieces. However, until every country, east and west, takes full action in crushing radical, violent Islam, we’re just gonna get more Algerias, more World Trade Centers, more Koran-concocted carnage. Just ask Israel, which has endured sixty years of anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism disguised as Palestinian nationalism. Israel realizes: the only way to say “no more” is to say, “no,” more. And that means, when terrorism rears its ugly covered head, you gotta put the religion of peace in a world of pain.

This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.

(c) 2013 TotalTheater. All rights reserved.
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NON-FICTION – ESSAY – HUMOROUS: Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #52 (1/13/2013): AL GOREZEERA

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #52 (1/13/2013): Al Gorezeera

Aired January 12, 2013 on Dave’s Gone By.  Youtube clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKNhqPjnANY

Shalom Dammit!  This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of January 13th, 2013.

I never liked Al Gore.  Something about him – the smugness, the silver spoon, the hypocrisy – (we’ll get to that).  And for all his left-wing democratic ideals, he married a woman whose claim to fame was begging Congress to put warning labels on record albums.  Because in 1985, the greatest threat to our country was not Russia or the Middle East or poverty or famine but the Ramones.  So there was always something shifty about Albert Arnold Gore, Jr.  Lord knows, his jet-setting lifestyle seems a little out of sync with his altruism about sustainable energy, but okay, it’s not as if we expect him to live in a hut.  Neil Young can build electric cars, but he’s still tooling around in a `56 Crown Victoria.

Anyway, most of what skeeved me about Al Gore I couldn’t put my finger on.  I think a lot of liberals felt that way when George Bush stole the presidency out from under him.  After eight good years under Bill Clinton – we didn’t know how good we had it – people still couldn’t bring themselves to pull the lever for Mr. Internets.  True, the former vice president scored brownie points by making a movie about global warming.  It left most people global sleeping but still, it was the right message that should have been listened to then and now.  And with a whole TV network at his disposal, Gore had the chance to make a real difference in the content and dissemination of news around the world.

That his network, Current TV, failed financially is no shame.  But his response was mind boggling – he sold it to Al Jazeera.  That’s right, ground zero for Arab propaganda, Al Jazeera, now gets a bigger hoofhold in America.  Al J paid Al G 500 million dollars for the privilege of reaching Comcast, Dish Network, Verizon and your local Etch-a-Sketch.

Now, let’s be fair.  Most of the time, Al Jazeera functions as an objective journalistic outlet that covers the Arab world more directly than Rupert Murdoch or Reuters ever could.  But make no mistake: Al Jazeera was founded and financed by people very close to the ruling family of Qatar.  Yes, the network is privately owned – by the cousin of the Emir.  And American journalists who have worked for Al Jazeera have complained that everything on it has an anti-American or anti-Israel slant.  Remember – this was the place Osama bin Laden would mail his Mp3s to.

“Oh Rabbi,” I hear you say, “if the Zodiac killer sends his messages to the San Francisco Chronicle instead of to the cops, do you blame the paper?”  No, and you can’t fault Al Jazeera for running with the story, even if their superstar was a mass-murdering lunatic that they could have helped bring to justice.  As such, you can be wary of a network that lives to pish on the Western world.  And if I want to watch Israel bashing in the guise of news, I don’t need Al Jazeera; I’ll just put on Amy Goodman’s “Democracy Now.”

Al Gore did not have to do business with these people.  If there can be entire networks devoted to game shows or old soap operas, surely Gore could have found a buyer with a 24-hour skateboarding channel, or a new MTV that actually plays music videos.  And hey, Tipper’s now history, so you can even leave the obscenities in.

The biggest obscenity is that Mr. Gore, who has spent 30 years warning the world about oil being so scarce, how drilling depletes our natural resources and changes the weather, how pollution is melting the arctic, how there are so many cleaner and more efficient ways to make energy – this Al Gore just pocketed half a billion dollars from a company founded on the profits of oil drilling, consumption, fake shortages and price fixing.  Not to mention a country governed under family dictatorship and Sharia law.

For years, I felt bad that I didn’t vote for Al Gore in the 2000 election. I went with Ralph Nader, because I believed his rap about Democrats being just as lousy as the Republicans – that both parties are owned by the same mega-corporations and drug companies.  Nader was right, but eight years of Dubya also proved him wrong.  I used to wonder how different America would have been had Al Gore been president instead of Bush.  Now I know.  He would have sold New Mexico to Saudi Arabia and made Mahmoud Ahmedinejad chairman of the B’nai Brith.

I am not one to advocate censorship. I’m not saying, “Hey everyone, call your cable provider and threaten to go back to rabbit ears if Al Jazeera gets a channel.”  But the price of freedom is vigilance. If Current TV now morphs into wall-to-wall Intifadeh, with the most popular show being “Two and a Half Men Blowing Up Three and a Half Synagogues,” you know what to do. After all, the Arabs have spilled rivers of American blood. Must they now have blood and Gore?

This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.

(c) 2013 TotalTheater. All rights reserved.

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NON-FICTION – ESSAY – HUMOROUS: Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #47 (11/25/2012): GAZA GAZA HEY

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #47 (11/25/2012): Gaza Gaza Hey

Aired November 24, 2012 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSL0TEmRah4&feature=youtu.be

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of November 25th, 2012.

And so we find ourselves once again on the brink of war with our Arab brothers.  We warn them: stop firing rockets in Gaza; they fire rockets in Gaza, and Jerusalem, and Tel Aviv.  We tell them, recognize the state of Israel so we can have a starting point for peace talks; they want to obliterate Israel, instead. We say, Hamas and the Palestinian Authority have to be on the same page so we know whom to negotiate with; Mahmoud Abbas is a figurehead and Hamas fires weapons. It’s the same drek that’s been going on for sixty five years, and the tragedy is that it will go on long after our great-great-grandchildren are sipping prune juice in what’s left of Miami.

And, of course, Israel gets blamed. We’re the aggressors, we’re the ones occupying the territories, we’re the ones who own the pro-Jewish media, we’re the ones who keep making sitcom knock-offs of “Two and a Half Men.” A million and twelve times I’ve given my speech about how Israel belongs to Israel, how the Palestinians should go live anywhere else in the Arab world, and how no matter what Israel does – even if Israel were, God forbid, wiped off the map – that would not stop the Arabs from killing and terror and dragging the world back to the fifth century.  If anything, it would only embolden them: “Ooh, we destroyed a democracy filled with people who have different social values.  Gee, what other country can we do that to?”

Left-wing pundits are saying that Israel should not refuse to negotiate with terrorists.  You have to negotiate with Arab terrorists or else there’s no one to talk to.  Fine, let Israel negotiate with Hamas, just like we did with Yasser Arafat – because that was so productive, right?  If Hamas, or Al-Qaida, or the Taliban, or the PLO, or the AFLCIO want to lay down their weapons and negotiate a true ceasefire – great, get a room at the U.N., we’ll bring the chips and dip.  But sixty-five years of overtures to the Arab world have given us only one peace deal, with Egypt, and God knows where that’s headed after the revolution over there.

I’ll say it one more time: if Arabs want to live in Israel, fine. Let them live IN Israel, peacefully, as Israelis, in a Jewish state carved out of a tiny nugget of the middle east as recompense for the Holocaust. If the Arabs don’t want to live IN Israel, they can move to Jordan, or Syria, or Lebanon, or Iran, or Iraq, or Mexico, or Sudan – actually, I just threw Mexico in there to see if you were paying attention. And if the Arabs want to live near Israel, they have to stop sending us exploding Christmas gifts with “Made in Iran” on them.

Yes, Israel gets gazillions of dollars of weapons from the United States – so Israel can keep the Middle East stable instead of having to send American teenagers to do it.  And yes, living conditions are grueling in the occupied territories – so don’t live there!  Israel won those territories in two wars, they own it – get over it, get off it.

Israel is not going away.  It’s our teentsy-weentsy little homeland, and the Arab world – which really couldn’t give a rat’s ass about the Palestinians or else the Palestinians would all be living there – the Arab world hates the West, hates the Jews, and has no interest in any kind of peace that does not involve total and complete annihilation of its enemies.  Well, maybe not complete annihilation. They’d probably want to leave a few hundred behind just to torture.

At this time of Thanksgiving, let us pray for a cease fire, for cool heads and hopeful headlines, for lasting peace, and for a 48-inch HD TV with surround sound. Hey, at least I have a shot at that last one.

This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.

(c) 2012 TotalTheater. All rights reserved.

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