P-D analyzes Federal anti-terrorism grants to beef up the security of the physical structures of non-profit organizations, and in 2009 and 2010, the overwhelming majority on a national basis went to Jewish-themed organizations, and locally, it went heavily to Orthodox Jewish organizations, in spite of the fact that most of St. Louis’s Jews are Reform.
Karen Aroesty, head of the local ADL, (and she’s kind of a looker, too), is worried that so much Federal money eventually means Federal control. Where have you heard that before? Glad I can count the chairwoman of the St. Louis ADL is one of my frequent readers. Actually, she rants about the “separation between church” (shouldn’t that be synagogue?) “and state,” but the Constitution doesn’t actually use those words — What she is worried about here, or should be worried about, is the non-establishment clause.
But I think for the time being, in light of contemporary conventional bipartisan politics, she’s worried about nothing. Jews generally vote majority Democrat, so no Democrat President will tell the Jews they can’t practice Judaism, and the Republicans wish they had the Jewish vote, and many Republican voters buy into the “God’s chosen people” theology, mainly southern fundagelical Christians, so Republican Presidents won’t use Federal power to restrict the Jewish faith and religion, either. Only Christians are subject to this whimsical power that comes from Federal funding.
And no, there should not be this level of Federal entanglement in any faith system and its Earthly presences.
One more interesting tidbit:
Rosenberg, of the St. Louis Jewish Federation, said while he understands the difference between the two, “the nature of terror is that it drives all kinds of people all over the world.”
“If you dig into the motivations of the attack at the Seattle federation, it was about anger at the people of Israel over the treatment of Arabs,” Rosenberg said. “That’s different than a hate crime. It’s different than a right-wing militia. It has a strong political tinge.”
“Different than a right-wing militia.” Like the ones around here that had disproportionately Jewish leadership and constantly preached about how Nazi Germany should be the example of what we shouldn’t do? (Not that Nazi Germany should be our model for good governance, BTW.) And the ones that believed in racial equality, claimed that the Rockefeller establishment “keeps blacks poor because blacks are onto the establishment?” Put a cork in it, Rosenberg. Incidentally, piggybacking on something I said yesterday, this racial equality bullshit is why I put some distance between myself and the Patriot movement and its appendages.