Op-Eds

To anyone who’s been paying attention to Ilhan Omar, this latest outrage comes as no surprise — it’s pretty much par for the course for this Somali-American socialist from Minneapolis.

Strange as it sounds, Jews have always had a special relationship with the moon. We are compared to the moon (Midrash Tehillim 22) and count our months according to the moon’s cycle (Sukkah 29a). The moon was singled out for creation on the fourth day, and is the only element of creation that perceptively changes shape before our eyes every day, waxing and waning every month and thereby meriting its own berachah upon its monthly reappearance.

The Democratic Party is rallying behind three of the most vicious bigots Congress has seen in decades. I am alternately annoyed at the president for engineering this and impressed by his strategic thinking for the same reason.

When you give someone welfare handouts and food stamps, you help him or her until the cash soon runs out. But when you create conditions that enable such people to obtain employment and to work gainfully, you help them and their future generations for life, even as you imbue them with dignity.

The elephant in the room is that Rabbi Landes fails to say one word about intermarriage and assimilation being objectionable or problematic. In contrast, the objectionability of intermarriage and its dire consequences are exactly what Rabbi Peretz’ remarks were targeting.

On its face, socialism sounds so fair, especially in its latest iteration, the “Green New Deal”: To each according to his or her need — and why not? Equality of results. Equality of incomes. As a bonus, an end to climate change and cows flatulating. Let us briefly look more closely.

On this 243rd anniversary of our declaring independence from tyranny and launching the greatest human experiment in world history, we stand together before you on this beautiful day that You created — and made gorgeous, by Your grace and Your loving-kindness for all You created — with the word of “Thanks!” on our lips. Simply: Thanks.

The Equality Act is a toxic mixture of opposition to discrimination and endorsement of discrimination against those who adhere to traditional values. Rabbi Broyde says our “approach is deeply mistaken,” but does not challenge the facts my co-author and I provided in the paragraph he quotes. The Equality Act deems Torah beliefs to be bigotry and acting upon them discriminatory. It’s as simple as that.

As a member of the National Council of Young Israel (NCYI) Rabbis, I learned quickly that, unlike OU congregations, Young Israel requires that the shul president be Shomer Shabbat (Sabbath-observant). Having been a rabbi at shuls with non-observant Presidents, I know first-hand the night-and-day difference behind the scenes when the Shul President is Torah-observant.

I hereby offer the 20 Democrats polling under 2 percent five surefire “woke” ideas to propose during the debates that rapidly will recharge the rockets on any sputtering Leftist presidential bid and lift them to unimagined stratospheres.