My Jewish Problem

I understand that there are more than 250 different denominations in America, and when I ride around my little hometown I think we have most of them. There seems to be a church of one kind or another on every damn block. But we don’t have even one single synagogue. That’s too bad. We need Jews. They’re a special gang of people that I am very fond of. I’m speaking of American Jews. There’s another kind of Jew that is starting to piss me off — the Israeli Jews.

You may have heard the rumor that Hollywood and New York contain many Jews — and that’s true. The men who created and built Hollywood were Jews — Sam Goldwyn, Louis B. Mayer, Harry Cohn , the Zanucks, the Sarnoffs and the vast majority of the men who gave us movies and television, theatre and music were Jewish. And one helluva bunch of the actors and actresses who have captured our hearts are Jews. Just try to imagine American  life without the influence of such Jews as Mel Brooks, Mike Landon, Woody Allen, Kirk and Michael Douglas, Arthur Miller, Neil Simon, Dustin Hoffman, Billy Crystal, Larry David, Neil Diamond, Richard Dreyfus, Harrison Ford, Goldie Hawn, Carl and Rob Reiner, Barbra Stresiand, Jerry Seinfeld and Katie Couric. Hell, even the Fonz, Henry Winkler, is Jewish. The Starship Enterprise would never have gone where no men had gone before without Capt. Kirk and Mr. Spock, as portrayed by two Jewish actors, Bill Shatner and Leonard Nimoy. The wonderful gang on “Friends” wouldn’t have been the same without Ross and Phoebe, portrayed by two Jews, David Schwimmer and Lisa Kudrow. America fell in  love with Laura Ingalls Wilder on “Little House on the Prairie,” as portrayed by Jewish actress Melissa Gilbert. The great MASH  television series owed it’s life to Jewish writer/producer Larry Gelbart. Matthew Broderick is Jewish, and he’s married to the “Sex and the City” star Sarah Jessica Parker — a Jew. Remember the Three Stooges? All three, Larry, Curly and Moe, were Jewish.

I don’t know if I could face life without that Jewish rascal Jon Stewart on the Daily Show. Remember Peter Lorre? Jewish. How about Groucho and Lee J. Cobb. Jewish. Even Zsa Zsa Gabor, Dinah Shore and Joan Collins were Jews. I’ll always remember a “Sixty Minutes” interview where Mike Wallace (a Jew) asked Jewish violinist Itzhak Perlman why most of the world’s great violinists were Jewish. “It’s because our fingers are circumcised,” he answered. I also get a kick out of the fact that the two best known songs celebrating Christian holidays, “Easter Parade” and “White Christmas,” were written by Jewish Irving Berlin. My own musical tastes were establish back in the 40′s by two Jews, Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw.

Jews made good outside Hollywood too. In the U.S. Senate today we have Carl Levine, Arlin Specter, Diane Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, Russ Feingold, Bernie Sanders and Al Franken, joining such past heroes as Barry Goldwater, Jacob  Javits, Abraham Ribicoff and  Pierre Salinger, just to name a few. And the most rational voices from the Supreme Court are Jewish voices. People like Albert Einstein, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Jonas Salk and many thousands of other Jews have had a great effect on our entire nation.

I mention my sincere affection and admiration for my American Jewish friends, but that other set of Jews, over in Israel, are getting to be a huge pain to us, and they have a political lobby here that makes the NRA lobby look like a bunch of girl scouts.

We all admired the bravey and determination that brought the nation of Israel into being. We Americans began to pour money and arms and help into the nation as fast as we could, to make sure they weren’t kicked back into the sea by raging Muslims. We didn’t hate Muslims, we just wanted them to leave Israel alone. But in 1967 they made the mistake of attacking Israel one time too many, and her army kicked hell out of all of them. But then Israel began expanding and taking over the lands of other people. We knew damned well that the effect would be deadly to Israel and to us, so we begged them to calm down and go back to the pre-1967 borders. We guaranteed their safety if they’d do so. We have spent (and continue to spend) BILLIONS EVERY YEAR since their creation, and they thank us by telling us to go to hell. The best interests of the United States are being shredded by our backing of Israel. They’re going to do whatever they want, regardless of how much of trouble they cause us and the nations of the area. Most of the countries over there are now ready to accept the nation of Israel if they’ll just give back the captured land. (When they gave the Suez back to Eygpt it resulted in a peace treaty that is still in effect.) But the Israelis just keep poking sticks in eyes around Palestine, building fury from surrounding nations. The more we beg them to stop and back up, the more they give us the finger and keep right on building their settlements on other people’s land.

I foresee more and more troubles and problems in that part of the world, caused now by the Israelis and what they did with those billions of dollars we gave them to help create their country and turn it into a military powerhouse.  Without the solid backing of America, Israel probably wouldn’t have made it.  Most thinking people know that our backing of Israel is the main cause of our problems over there. As long as the Israelis continue to expand and inhabit Palestinian land the other nations of the area will blame us and hate us. We know it now.  We are trying to bring peace to the area.We beg and plead for Israel to go back to their 1967 borders and end the battles. And they continue to tell us to go to hell, and I have a sinking feeling that their fear of a nuclear Iran is going to drag us into another horrible, stupid war.

I wish American Jews could send their warmth, humor, intelligence,  kindness and concern over there, and tell them to settle down and become  the nation that could once again be admired by all.