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Reader Response

Jr. Jewish World
January 1, 1998 / 3 Tevet, 5758

Dispatch from Naziland

JWR's first month has been a great, if tiring, experience. Updating a web-based journal on a daily basis while preparing the next issue is more work than one might imagine, and our staff -- always trying to top itself! -- isn't very big. We hope we enriched your Chanukah. The most rewarding part for us, by far, has been your correspondence.

Much of what dropped through the email slot was simply praise or constructive criticism. To those who wrote, we thank you, and we hope you'll appreciate our latest offering just as much. (We think our new issue reflects some of what we've learned over the past few weeks, including what we've gathered from readers' comments, many of whom are professional writers or website designers, or, it appears, just very savvy. You know who you are.)

Nothing, however, was quite as engaging as some of what we received from those who didn't care at all for what they saw. Those who have been keeping up with developments will already be familiar with the missive of Jewish Press editor Steve Walz masquerading as a representative of Virtual Jerusalem. (We've heard Steve found our response amusing. In keeping with the theme of our cover article for this issue, we'll declare for the no-first-use doctrine: we won't sue him if he doesn't sue us. And if Virtual Jerusalem doesn't ask, we won't tell.)

Adam Sandler fans unite!

One of our best mail-getters has been conversative syndicated columnist Don Feder, who writes for the Boston Herald and wields a very sharp pen. Don feted Jewish World Review editor-in-chief Binyamin L. Jolkovsky as a modern-day Maccabee in a recent column on Chanukah. Whether you're a conservative looking for a day-long smile or a counterattacking liberal on the lookout for ammunition in the war against rude-boy reactionismo, we suggest you look him up.

We received a pithy response to Don's Chanukah column, in which he also wished death to comic Adam Sandler, author and performer of the offbeat "Chanukah Song," first made famous on Saturday Night Live.

Yo, lighten up!

AllenGoldberg
VicePresident, BusinessDevelopment
RelevantKnowledge

Another reader, perhaps inspired by Don's recent "Liberal Hypocrisy" theme, saw fit to comment at somewhat greater length on two of his previous columns. (He also had a working spacebar.)

Dear JWR:

What does Don Feder believe about our common humanity?

The work of a columnist is surely not easy. I would have to imagine that the constant pressure to produce really brings out one's thoughts and hones one's philosophy. So, just for fun, let's look at excerpts from consecutive Feder offerings. From his Dec. 18 column:

"Could Rwanda be another Clinton triumph in the making? Visiting the tribal killing fields last week, Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright said the West was partially to blame for the 1994 bloodletting because we didn't respond quickly enough to the Hutu massacre of 500,000 Tutsis.

"The day Albright arrived, a guerrilla attack on a refugee camp left more than 300 dead. The United States-backed Tutsi government has it own human-rights problems. Here is a tempting opportunity for liberal nation builders."

"...Only Wilsonian naivete combined with Bushian hubris could imagine that half a millennium of religious hatred culminating in ethnic cleansing could be undone in three years. America's interests were never at stake in either Bosnia or Haiti. Try as the president might to dress up his follies in national security rhetoric, both interventions were driven by nothing more than a panicked altruism that ignored both history and prudence.

"If we can survive three more years of Clinton's one-world burlesque, perhaps the next administration will give us an international strategy premised on our vital interests, instead of the flower-child foreign policy."

And here is the tail end of his Mon, Dec. 22 column, on the persecution of Christians worldwide, especially in China:

"What will you do? Do you care enough to stop buying Chinese products, to write your legislators and demand immediate passage of H.R. 2431, to get your church involved?

"As a Jew, it pains me to recall the deafening silence that greeted the Holocaust. If I were a Christian, I'd find it hard to have a merry little Christmas knowing I'd none nothing to save my coreligionists from the flames."

It is said that consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds. Don Feder's intellect, then, appears to be so expansive that it can shift from cold calculations about the lives of Tutsis, Muslims and Haitians one week to heartrending pleas on behalf of Jews and Christians the next. Possibly he doesn't know any Tutsis, Muslims or Haitians personally. Or perhaps all those corpses are just foils with which he signals disdain for Democratic flower children and concern for Republican churchgoers.

As a Jew, it pains me to take notice of Feder's flavor-of-the-month sense of whose existence is worth the blink of an eye. If I were him, I'd find it hard to maintain such a casual relationship with my principles, knowing I'd advertised them as far and wide as Creators Syndicate can reach.

Yours,

Daniel Rosen
Pikesville, Maryland, USA

Requires little comment

We conclude on a more frenetic note. Binyamin L. Jolkovsky's signed editorial and "First Person" essay on the importance of living Jewish continuity, as opposed to dim remembrances, also drew forth eloquent responses from the global Jewish community. Here's our favorite. (All errors are original. We've added a few strategic dashes here and there.)

Subject: SHAME ON YOU!
Date: Tue, 23 Dec 1997 1:59:37 EST
From: "A Proud Jew" <Proud_Jew@aol.com>
To: schmooze@jewishworldreview.com

We Jews have been called many things throughout our history, but "fools" certainly hasn't been one of them. Who are you trying to kid? Isn't it obvious that you are neo-Nazis? You belittle the Holocaust by saying it should no longer be at the center of the Jewish identity, you make fun of the many Holocaust museums that show what Judaism was once! How dare you, Mother F---ing Sons of Bitchers!

I mean come on, you claim that your publisher's name is "Binyamin L. Jolkovsky." Now it's obvious where you get the "Binyamin" from. It's the Israeli Prime Minister's first name. And "Jolkowsky?" That sounds more like the sirname of some anti_semetic Catholic Pole. Couldn't you be just a little more creative and call "him" something like "jacob Cohen"?

Well, I've already called the ADL to complain. They promised me that they're going to see to it that you guys get closed down pretty fast!. Yes, we Jews DO control the world --- including the World Wide Web!!! They're going to spread the truth that there is absolutely nothing "Jewish" in your "Review" of the "World."

One cannot separate the Holocaust from Judaism or Jewish identity. Today Judaism is the Holocaust. Nothing else!!!!!!! As my hero Rabbi Meyer Kahane said: "NEVER AGAIN!"

And don't try finding out my identity in order to harass me. This account has been deactivated.

Betcha wanted to burn a cross on my lawn, didn't you!? Burn in HELL you a--holes!!!!!!!!!!

BTW, next on my agenda is to contact each and every one of your writers and tell them the truth. If they don't listen I'm going to publicize the truth about them, too!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh, BTW, Merry Christmas. Jesus died for your sins and you're going to die for Hitlers!!!!

When last contacted, editor-in-chief Binyamin L. Jolkovsky was able to offer assurances that he is neither fictitious nor a Catholic Pole. No word from the ADL yet. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

Keep the mail coming, folks.

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