September 29- On scurrilous letter re: France as anti-Semitic

Have you been receiving the same internet nonsense I have? It purports to inform of the horrors afflicting the Jews in France. In Lyon a car was rammed into a synagogue and set on fire; the Jewish religious center in Montpellier was firebombed; on the statue of Alfred Dreyfus in Paris the words “Dirty Jew” were painted. Other atrocities are listed. All of this happened in the past week, we are told. No wonder French Jews are fleeing to the relative safety of Israel. We are urged to boycott French products and its shores. We can exert amazing pressure, the broadside reads, “and whatever else we may know about the French, we most certainly know that they are like a cobweb in a hurricane in the face of well directed pressure.” We are urged to send this message along to our family, our friends and co-workers.

OK, friends and family and co-workers, you can stop sending me this; I’ve seen it.

Is any of it true? Well, yes, the specific events did happen. But they happened not this week, but in April 2002 at the height of the Intifada. The culprits were not French Frenchmen; they were Muslim immigrants, or the children of immigrants, mostly poor, religious and susceptible to violence. Some few of them saw what their co-religionists were doing in Israel, they felt solidarity with them, and they acted. Once the attacks began the French police protected Jewish institutions throughout the country and prosecuted captured felons and the attacks ceased.

Did French Jews panic? No. They took reasonable precautions, as did the Jews of Rhode Island after the recent shooting at the Seattle Jewish Federation, and continued to live their lives. There was no mass Jewish emigration from France to Israel.

When Muslims rioted in France in the fall of 2005, again the Jewish community did not panic. “Manek Weintraub, of the Representative Council of the Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF) told the British website TotallyJewish.com, ‘So far nothing has happened. There was a Molotov cocktail that seems to have been hurled at a small synagogue but nobody really knows about it. It [the riots] will concern the public authorities but Jews are largely absent from the story, which is welcome.’”

This does not sound like panic to me.

So who wrote the “Jews are being led to the slaughter in France!” piece that has crossed your desk and mine? Answer: Not my cousin, not my friend, my not my co-worker, they just took the bait, believed the hype and passed it on. Who does that leave? Someone with an agenda, perhaps? One source could be Arutz Sheva (Channel Seven), a right wing Israeli online media network banned by the Israeli government because of racist incitement. In fact, a quick Google search confirms that it was broadcasting this material in 2005. But where did it get it? As early as April 2002 there was a similar piece going around the internet, purportedly from Senator Joseph Lieberman. It contained the same information. But Lieberman didn’t write the letter; it was a forgery. So who’s responsible for that? Perhaps someone who is angry at France for not supporting America’s attack on Iraq, someone angry enough to object to the fact that France was right (as the government in Washington now fully admits) that there never were any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, that Saddam Hussein never cooperated with Al Qaeda, that he and Osama hated each other. The French knew all this and spoke up. They must be punished.

Is France, after all, the only country recently to experience anti-semitic acts? “Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership, Inc.” (no, I’m not making this up) issued a broadside on December 8, 2003 listing thirteen recent acts of anti-Semitism in Europe (two in Belgium, four in Britain, two in Italy, one each in Germany, Ukraine, Greece, Holland, Slovakia.) And then it comes to the point: “But nowhere have the flames of anti-Semitism burned more furiously than in France” and then it gives the usual old examples. What does “Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership” advocate? My initial guess (considering the source) was “Pack a Rod, Plug a Frog” but no, boycott etc. just as the original letter with the identical words urges.

Am I the only one smelling a rat here? Aren’t there anti-Semites in all countries, including or own? (Seattle, anyone? The LA nursery school shooter?) Bad things happen in even the most wonderful places. Vive La France.

September 15- Lessons about proportionate response to kidnapping from the Iliad

The return of the Jewish New Year is happening with increasing frequency, or so it seems. Already I can taste the flavors of my wife’s cooking and hear the Rosh Hashanah-only tunes. We have survived 5766. As a child I used to think of God sitting with an open book on His lap deciding who should live and inscribing the names of the fortunate. Now, as an adult, I see no evidence that He isn’t, so like the famous wager of Pascal, I’ll bet on the side of belief and see if it pays off.

Jews are Janus-faced this time of year. We look backward to see forward. I always look backward; I’m an historian. It’s an occupational hazard. Last week I was teaching about the ancient Greeks. I told them the story of the contest between Aphrodite, Hera, and Athena. Each wanted the golden apple inscribed “To the Fairest.” Zeus refused to choose—he was as dull witted as he was strong and randy, but he wasn’t insane enough to get involved in this no-win (for him) situation. Instead they sought out a man, and asked him. Naturally a mere mortal couldn’t choose the most beautiful among the three goddesses, so each tendered a bribe. Hera, offered power; Athena, wisdom; Aphrodite, the most beautiful of women. Paris, a prince of Troy tending sheep (his father had received a prophesy when he was born that he would be responsible for the destruction of Troy; rather than kill the infant he gave him to a shepherd to do it; these things never work out, of course) chose Aphrodite who delivered on her promise. But she had failed to tell the young, foolish, man, that the woman promised would be Helen (she of the face that was soon to launch a thousand ships) already married to Menelaus, the warlike king of Sparta, scion of the cursed race of Atreus. They met while he was on grand tour following his punishment. When Menelaus was away, they stole off, landing safely in Troy, but bringing in their wake those self-same thousand ships filled with Greeks, determined to get her back.

There were those in Troy who told Paris to return the girl, that she wasn’t worth the price, but Paris being vainglorious, and knowing that no one could force him to return Helen, insisted on keeping his prize. The Greeks eventually came and destroyed the city.

As I was telling the students this familiar story, it occurred to me, mid-sentence: Can there be a more analogous situation in literature to what happened in the Middle East this summer? Hezbollah stole into our territory, stole our two soldiers (thinking, it is now revealed, that there would be no consequences). Many prominent Lebanese asked, begged, for the soldiers to be released, but Hezbollah refused, in its arrogance, and Lebanon was bombarded, its infrastructure devastated.

In the ancient story as told by Homer, the end of the war was not ambiguous. The Greeks, love ’em or hate ’em, knew what they were after and settled for no less than the return of their hostage (yes, Helen was a willing hostage, but even she yearned to return to Sparta).

When I teach the Iliad I usually root for the Trojans, especially for their great hero Hector. The Greeks, it’s always seemed to me, were the arrogant Yankees, the Trojans the noble Brooklyn Dodgers, doomed to fail gallantly. But now, now the Greeks are still the Yankees, the Trojans still the Dodgers, but current events allow me to view the past with a different perspective. When they steal your people, you have to go in and get them back. Innocent Trojans died; innocent Lebanese died. They should have taken control of their destinies by forcing Hezbollah to give up the captured soldiers, by forcing Paris to give back Helen. If Israel’s response was disproportionate, it was just acting as people always do, when they can, when their people are snatched up.

At year’s end, year’s beginning, let me end where I started, with a New Year’s reflection. Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to speak to you, to pique your curiosity, occasionally to entertain, not infrequently to annoy (apparently). One day I’m going to trade in this old Olivetti portable electric typewriter, but not yet. Shanna Tova; may 5767 be for us a year of love and joy, peace and prosperity, good health and the wonder of discovery. Be strong and resolute, Haverim.

Response to David Klinghoffer on the religious right

Every once in a while I hear the ground rumble. Usually it’s my mother turning over in her grave as I commit one faux pas or another. It’s nice to know that she’s keeping an eye on me. But when it happened a couple of weeks ago, I checked and no, it wasn’t her this time, it was old Abraham Cahan.

Cahan (1860-1951) established the Jewish Forward in 1897. His paper espoused socialist principles. The rights of the workingman, the release from the superstitions of the religious, were his rallying cries. The newspaper was also a way to Americanize his readers. Yes, it was written in Yiddish, but the goal was to turn the children and grandchildren of immigrants into the American doctors, lawyers, dentists, teachers, union activists that they became. “It is as important to teach the reader to carry a handkerchief in his pocket as it is to teach him to carry a union card,” he famously wrote.

So what made him turn over in his grave? Probably the piece by David Klinghoffer who began his August 18th column in the “Forward” with “Some members of America’s political and cultural elite…” This is code wording for liberals, we élitists not in touch with the common man; it’s a word “compassionate conservatives” (as opposed to the usual kind, I suppose) use to slur liberals who, as far as I can tell, are the people who speak for the underclasses in America—the poor, the worker, the black, the immigrant.

OK, so what are we élitists doing today, according to Klinghoffer? We are confusing the political philosophy of Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and America’s religious conservatives. Who knew? And we are wrong to think of Bush, Jr. etc. as attempting to impose an Iranian style theocracy on America. As a former colleague of his at the “National Review” argues, disingenuously, “even the most ambitious members of the so-called Christian right wish to do nothing more radical than return the United States to the status quo of the 1950s” and that was certainly not a theocracy.

Ah, the 1950s, I remember them well. Bible-thumping ministers denouncing integration, voting for the likes of Orville Faubus, Ross Barnett, and George “segregation now, segregation tomorrow and segregation forever” Wallace. It was a quieter, gentler time when Mrs. Hollman, my fourth grade teacher, would start our day at PS193 by reading form the from Psalms, but other teachers across the country began their classes with the Lord’s Prayer. The words “Under God” were added to the Pledge of Allegiance, though the pledge’s author, Francis Bellamy, a Baptist minister, had deliberately omitted them. But even in the 1950s I don’t remember anyone teaching creationism in school or even the deceptively re-coined version of it “intelligent design.” That throwback to the 1920s had to wait until our own enlightened time, foisted upon us by the Christian right, if they can get away with it. I don’t remember in the 1950s arguments that religious symbols such as the Ten Commandments, should be emblazoned on public property, but I do remember that come Christmas we Jewish students of PS 193 learned to sing “Silent Night, Holy Night” as well as “Jingle Bells.” I loved being excluded from the rest of America, didn’t you?

Klinghoffer argues that we élitists miss the point that some of biblical law is essentially natural law—thou shall not murder, thou shall not steal, etc. Fine, so we don’t need religion to teach it. The Ten Commandments begins, “I am the Lord Your God…” how in conformity with the first amendment’s separation of church and state is that, festooned behind the judge? And what kind of God does it mean? The unitary God of Jews and Muslims? The Trinity of Christianity? The Divine Spirit of Reason preached by natural law philosophers such as Cicero? These are the kind of questions people kill each other over, each certain that he has the correct answer and that the others are infidels (or, to cite Klinghoffer in another context, “pagans.” A blurb for a forthcoming book reads: “Addressing such timely topics as the controversy over public displays of the Commandments and the battles over Intelligent Design, Klinghoffer demonstrates that Christians and Jews are united in their opposition to the pagan aspects of our culture.”) Oh, Zeus, why do you not strike such people with your thunderbolt? That’s the trouble with Zeus. He’s never around when we need him.

No wonder poor Abe Cahan is rolling over in his grave.

Sitting around Shabbat Table

Our dining room table is an elongated circle, an oval of wood; mahogany, I think, maybe redwood. A legacy of my maternal grandparents, it’s old by contemporary American standards. I date it to the mid-nineteen twenties, though I may be off by a decade. When the children are home or when we have guests, my wife and I sit at opposite ends, but when it’s just the two of us we sit closer together, across the short axis. On Shabbat the candlesticks frame our view of each other between the glow of the shimmering lights. In the winter, when evening comes early, these provide the only source of illumination in the room that we allow to penetrate the darkness. We sing Shalom Aleichem, staring into each other’s eyes. It’s a song based on the Talmudic suggestion that two angels accompany the inauguration of Shabbat, a good angel and a bad. If the home is well prepared the good angel blesses the household and the bad angel is forced to say “Amen.” If the house is not well ordered, the bad angel curses and the good angel is forced to say “Amen.” But the hymn, at least in the form we have it, does not distinguish between good and bad angels, it speaks only of angels, and in my mind all of them are good. What else would HaShem create?

“We wish you peace, attending angels, angels of the most sublime, the King of kings, the Holy One, praised be He.

“Come to us in peace, angels of peace, angels of the most sublime, the King of kings, the Holy One, praised be He.

“Bless us with peace, angels of peace, angels of the most sublime, the King of kings, the Holy one, praised be He.”

And then reluctantly, ruefully:

“Take your leave in peace, angels of peace, angels of the most sublime, the King of kings, the Holy One, praised be He.”

When we finish singing I bless the boys if they are home and then kiss my bride of the past 35 years and thank her for being herself and for making us ourselves, for making our home the center of our lives. Then I chant two history lessons interrupted by a blessing. I sing in my off-tuned warble of the creation of Shabbat on the 7th day; I give thanks for the fruit of the vine and then I remind us of the exodus from Egypt. These two births, of Shabbat, marking the completion of creation and of the Jewish people, chosen, saved, for reasons we do not understand, inaugurate Shabbat in our house each Friday evening as we end one week and begin anew another.

So, when I, the rationalist, the student of Voltaire and Diderot sit at my oval Shabbat table, the gift of my grandparents, and someday our gift to one of our children, when we sing the hypnotically repetitious words of Shalom Aleichem, do I really think there are angels in the room, bringing peace? As I look into my wife’s eyes, reflecting back at me the flickering light of the candles she has just lit, as I see my children in their chairs, whether they are actually in the room or not, when I know that the week’s troubles are over, at least for a few hours in this sacred temple of which we have made our dining room, then yes, I do believe in the angels and I am glad they are there and just a bit sad when I sing the final verse:

“Take your leave in peace, angels of peace, angels of the most sublime, the King of Kings, the Holy One, praised be He.

As I write these words I am just back from our annual pilgrimage to the Tanglewood music festival. On Friday night we were not at our oval table, we were on the great lawn, waiting for the music to commence (Bach, Bach and Handel). To my right there was a family, a father, mother and daughter. The mother quietly, unobtrusively, blessed and lit the Shabbat candles and then together, soto voce, they sang Shalom Aleichem. The father blessed his little girl, aged around ten, and then said kiddush over the wine. After they passed around the cup, the mother said the blessing over the challah and together they ate their meal, as the glorious music engulfed us all. Should Shabbat be inaugurated any other way?

What I learned of human nature by watching Romeo and Juliet

Last Saturday I woke to the news of the shooting at the Seattle JCC. The war in Lebanon dragged on. I felt the need to get over the gloom, so we drove to Wilcox Park in Westerly to see Shakespeare. He’s been dead for quite a while now, but the magic of his words lives on quite nicely, thank you very much. The play was Romeo and Juliet, the first half of which, you will recall, is comedic, the second part less so.

Things start to go bad when Tybalt, Juliet’s cousin, kills Mercutio, Romeo’s quick-witted friend, and in a rage, Romeo kills Tybalt. All this on the day Romeo of the house of Montague secretly married Juliet, daughter of Capulet. Juliet’s mother, unaware of her daughter’s marriage, curses Romeo; she wants him dead. Attempting to impeach the credibility of the one reliable witness, she wails:

“He is kinsman to the Montague,
Affection makes him false, he speaks not true…
I beg for justice, which thou, Prince, must give—
Romeo slew Tybalt, Romeo must not live.”

Instead, Romeo is exiled. Friar Lawrence, in an attempt to bring the warring houses together has arranged for the secret marriage, and now he comes up with a plan to re-unite the lovers. Juliet will take a potion to feign death. Friar Lawrence will send a note to Romeo informing him of the ruse and inviting him back to Verona to sweep her away to the safety of his exile in Mantua. But the plan fails. Romeo doesn’t get the note. He buys poison, goes to the Capulet tomb where he drinks the quick acting stuff. Almost immediately upon his death, Juliet awakens, sees her dead lover, tries to find a few more drops of the poison to swallow, but when that fails, takes Romeo’s dagger and stabs herself to death.

The prince of Verona, who has been trying to impose peace between the warring factions within his city finds the bodies and summons the fathers. Montague enters the crypt tearfully announcing that his wife has died of a broken heart as a result of Romeo’s banishment. The prince, upon discovering the truth of what has happened, bellows in rage:

“Where be these enemies? Capulet! Montague!
See what a scourge is laid upon your hate
That Heav’n finds means to kill your joys ...
And I for winking at our discords too
Have lost a brace of kinsmen. All are punish’d.”

Later he modifies the hasty decree as the play ends. The families reconcile, but it is too late. The children still lie embraced by the eternal sleep of death. The prince sums up:

“A glooming peace this morning with it brings,
The Sun for sorrow will not show his head.
Go hence to have more talk of these sad things:
Some shall be pardon’d and some punished.
For never was a story of more woe
Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.”

Listening to Juliet’s mother and later to the prince, looking to the sky and seeing the dagger-like image of the constellation Cygnus, the nature of man was suddenly revealed to me in all its horrid simplicity. In Lebanon it is being played out dramatically these past few weeks, though it’s been simmering to the occasional boil ever since at least 1936. Are we Jews the house Montague? Are the Arabs Capulet? I do not know. I do not care, but either way we are:

“Two households both alike in dignity
…From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.”

Shakespeare reminds us of two contradictory truths. The enmity between the houses was as self-destructively stupid as it was inevitable in the nature of man. The calls for vengeance bring on more vengeance. It is the human condition. We know it’s wrong, we know it’s stupid, and yet we cannot escape from the gripping maw of hatred which engulfs. As a student of history I try to pretend that we humans are reasonable creatures, and yet what crimes, wars, murders do I relate to my students on almost a daily basis? That being the case, though I know it will ultimately do no good, I’m for Israel being triumphant over Hezbollah and Hamas fighters until the world (the prince—for a while in 2000, I thought that the prince would be president Clinton; I’m pretty sure it won’t be Kofi Annan) imposes a peace that will last, how long? Only for a while, until the next unforgivable outrage.

Response to Hamas kidnapping IDF soldier

I write on Friday the 14^th of July. Four thousand miles to the east rockets are exploding, bombs are dropping; the emotional reverberations are felt in my home; yours too, I imagine. What the situation will be when the paper arrives at your door, I do not know, but today, it is bad. Worse, Israel has only itself to blame. It did not learn the lessons of history.

Out of Gaza on June 25 came Hamas gunmen to kill Israeli soldiers on Israeli soil, and then they kidnapped one of them, a young corporal with dual Israeli-French citizenship. For weeks Jews in southern Israel had been hit with rockets, more annoying than lethal, but always an unprovoked menace.

Then on July12 Hezbollah forces crossed into northern Israel and killed and kidnapped other soldiers. Israel responded with an incursion into Lebanon, hitting bridges and the airport in an effort to prevent the kidnappers from taking their prey out of Lebanon into Iran. Already Nahariya and Haifa have been hit by Hezbollah rockets. Each side’s fury mounts with each rocket landing, each soldier or civilian killed or wounded.

What is to be learned? Nothing is learned. That’s the problem. The British and the French gave the Sudatenland to Hitler to buy peace; the French then hid behind the Maginot line while the British felt secure on their side of the Channel. None to any avail. That’s the lesson that ought to have been learned by Israel, but wasn’t. The most fundamental lesson is that Israel must never again unilaterally withdraw from territory. It does not work. Israel pulled out of Sinai when Anwar Sadat and Menachim Begin reached agreement on how and when and for what in exchange. In short, the Sinai for peace—real peace, not just the hope of peace. For this the Arab leader won the Noble Peace Prize and later an Arab bullet. But the peace held. (Israel offered Gaza in the same package, but Sadat was too smart to accept it. Gaza had only been occupied by Egyptian forces, it had never been part of Egypt proper; “No, Menachem, you can keep that snake pit,” the Egyptian leader conceded. One can only wonder what Begin’s reaction was. Probably not joy.)

But that’s it, the one example of negotiated handover of land. Later, in 2000, Israel surprised the world by unilaterally withdrawing, overnight, from southern Lebanon, callously abandoning its Christian allies to their fate. Munich redux. Almost immediately Hezbollah moved in and started attacking northern Israel with rockets and mortars claiming that a small area (Shebaa Farms, a 28 sq. km. piece of land) was still occupied territory, despite this time the usually hostile world siding with Israel, saying “no, it’s not.” And then last year, after a year’s buildup, Israel removed its settlers and soldiers from Gaza. Immediately weapons were smuggled from Egypt into Gaza. The Hamas led government either turned a blind eye or actively engaged in the process of illegally arming its militants. Either way, the results were inevitable and soldiers and civilians on both sides died.

So the first uncomfortable conclusion is that Israel must not again retreat without ironclad guarantees that it will not be assaulted by the very people to whom it returned land taken in defensive wars. The tail of the tiger is an uncomfortable thing to hold. Letting go is more than uncomfortable; it’s disastrous.

And the other choice? Can there ever be peace with the Palestinians? Egypt was one thing; Israel occupied another country’s territory and then gave it back following negotiations. But the Palestinian leadership believes that Israel itself is occupied Palestine. So what to do? Expel the Arabs from Gaza and the West Bank? Re-occupy southern Lebanon? One choice is worse than the next. Even if Israel succeeds in its intention of destroying the Hezbollah leadership, the Arabs can wait. If not now, then later their attack will be successful, they think. By this scenario, the only way to avoid the killings is to pull down the flag, blow up the improvements made over the past 60 years and go back to Europe and other places from which the Jews came with their talents. That’s not going to happen either. The Jewish people are in this thing for the long term. Withdrawal is not an option.

What the situation will be when the paper arrives at your door, I do not know, but today, it is bad.

Comparison of religion to baseball

Which is more important, religion…or baseball? Or is baseball the ultimate religion? It’s a tough call. I grew up as a Jew (but not as a Red Sox fan) in the leafy East Midwood section of Brooklyn. Until the first time my father took me to Ebbets Field I’d only seen the Dodgers on the grainy TV in our living room. In black and white. I gasped for breath in astonishment when I saw the real thing. The vastness of the perfectly mown green outfield grass, the brown of the base paths, the sparkling white uniforms of the Dodgers, all a foretaste of heaven, I thought.

When the god-like players poured out of their dugout and ran to their positions, Hodges to First, Gilliam at Second, Pee-Wee at Short and Robinson at Third, the deep uncompromising ebony of Jackie’s skin made me feel proud to be a Brooklynite because, even then, I knew that we’d been the first to allow black people to play. We did that wonderful thing and changed the world. In the back of my mind I assumed that all the players were Jewish. I still do.

That the greedy unspeakable son of Satan, Walter O’Malley, would bring the team to Los Angeles was one thing (what could you expect from such a bottom line bottom feeder) but that my heroes would actually go was jaw dropping, bone shaking, stomach wrenching. We were betrayed; the joy of our lives was stolen. One hero remained pure though. Jackie. When he was traded to the hated NY Giants at the end of the ’57 season, he refused to go; instead he retired from baseball, pure as pure could be.

In later life I became a Red Sox rooter by choice, but in fact it wasn’t much of a switch at all. Ebbets Field and Fenway Park are very similar; the Yankees are still the archenemy. Like the Dodgers, the Sox have only reached the Promised Land of World Series victory once in my lifetime, in both cases having to defeat the Yankees to do it; like the Dodgers the Sox have heroes of the past, godlike figures who walked the earth (Smokey Joe Wood, Ted Williams, Carl Yastrzemski); we both have our traitors (Harry Frazee, Walter O’Malley) but only Boston had an official curse (of the Bambino). The Red Sox religion has uniforms (hats and jerseys); we have our priests (managers and coaches); we have our songs (Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline” and the risqué “Dirty Waters” whenever we win at home); we have our epic stories, of Buckner’s bumble in ’86, of Fiske’s home run in ’75, of leaving Pedro in for just too long in 2003; we have our sacred space, Fenway Park, hallowed be its halls.

My other religion is a form of Judaism possibly unique to me. I attend synagogue, but don’t generally pray. I wear the uniform (tallit, tephellin and kippah); I sing songs in half understood Hebrew. I maintain a kosher diet, more or less, mostly more; I behave in what I hope is an ethical manner. I believe that God created the world and man, except when I believe that chemical forces interacted and KABOOM! there was the earth. Either way, it doesn’t particularly matter.

As I sing the songs in a language I only half understand I am in communion with my ancestors of a hundred or more generations, and, I hope, with my descendants for an equal amount of time; as I think about the half understood forces of nature being slowly unraveled by struggling human science I continue to wonder if the Almighty is the originator of the Big Bang. God only knows, but He’s not talking. Of this, though, I am certain: The whole thing is designed so that if we use our minds, not depend on revelation, we’ll figure out His physics. I read the bible. It has some powerful stories and some interesting perspectives on life and love as does Shakespeare, both being divinely inspired, and I go on with my life.

I wonder if those who insist that America is a Christian nation (in Kentucky the governor is demanding that textbooks refer to BC and AD, not to BCE and CE) intend to keep us non-Christians around once they’ve transformed our country into their theocracy. Religion ought to be like being a Red Sox fan. It should be uplifting; it can be community building. Only better. No one gets excommunicated; no one’s ever burned at the stake.

Go Sox! (=Amen).