When Radical [Rabbis] come to get me released...

So I'm seeing my colleagues thoughtfully considering Glen Beck's comments all over Facebook (that is to say, having a good laugh and/or doing the rabbinic equivalent of, "Really?"). On Ilan Emmanuel's page (aka The Scifi Rabbi) I jokingly said that we should make T-shirts. Dan Fellman agrees.

So, in response to Glen Beck's little commentary, what kind of T-shirts should we make for Reform Rabbis? What would it say? What kind of picture? I'm thinking of Isaac Meyer Wise in a Hawaiian shirt (or all punked out with a mohawk) with the words "Radical" underneath. Or maybe the guy up above. So, whaddaya think?

The Difference Between Reform Rabbis and Islamists

Thank you to Commentary Magazine for this! (Wow, I can't believe I just wrote that!).

The Difference Between Reform Rabbis and Islamists:

However much many liberal Jews have come to see their faith in terms that have tended to merge their political beliefs with their religious identity, Reform Judaism is a venerable religious movement above and beyond political activism that is due the same respect that any other denomination of one of our country’s great faiths deserves. Many of its rabbis are, and have been, political activists (including many who are ardent Zionists), but that does not justify putting their faith down as mere politics. To do so is to manifest the sort of disrespect for religion that is more usually associated with the left than the right.

Moreover, any comparison between Reform rabbis and the leaders of Islamism is as untrue as it is obnoxious. Reform’s beliefs are in no way the equivalent of a creed that seeks to destroy all non-Islamic governments and faiths as Islamists do. Nor need we point out that it is also true, as Beck helpfully noted in passing, that Reform rabbis are not the spiritual leaders of a movement that sponsors terrorism as a matter of principle.

While the signers of the one-sided anti-Beck ad opened themselves up to criticism for backing an obviously partisan argument, to put down an entire religious movement as mere politics, as if a vast association of synagogues, schools, camps, and charitable endeavors exists merely to take shots at Beck, is absurd. As with some of Beck’s other glib utterances that have gotten him into trouble, it’s clear that he’d be better off not talking about topics about which his knowledge is limited.

Um, what?

Now, I don't usually get into domestic politics here; values? Yes. Internal politics of the Jewish community? Sadly, yes. Israel? You betcha. And I find that most Reform rabbis do the same; rare is the rabbi these days that preaches on specific political agenda. But, apparently, according to Glen Beck, I am (or at least, 'reformed' rabbis are) members of a political, not religious organization, akin to radicalized Islamists.

Huh.

To be fair, he does try to walk back from that line, realizing the comparison was probably faulty. However, I'm pretty sure I'm in the God business, or at least the spiritual meaning business. And, like most religious institutions, that business has a community engagement component. No different than, say, The Church of Latter Day Saints. Or the Catholic Church. Or African American Churches. Just happens that our community engagement is more progressive/liberal than the first two examples.

Does that mean that LDS and the Catholic church are political? Or African American churches? I mean, they would never, say, endorse a candidate or a specific position to vote for from the pulpit, would they? I mean, I know I would never do that...

Huh.

Now, if only he would call us "Reform" consistently...

Full text below:

PAT GRAY (co-host): And now remember, this is all fueled by an organization that Soros funds, that has a bunch of progressive rabbis that came out against Glenn and said --

BECK: OK, you have to -- hang on just a second. When you talk about rabbis, understand that most -- most people who not Jewish don't understand that there are the Orthodox rabbis, and then there are the reformed rabbis. Reformed rabbis are generally political in nature. It's almost like Islam, radicalized Islam in a way, to where it is just -- radicalized Islam is less about religion than it is about politics. When you look at the reform Judaism, it is more about politics. I'm not saying that they're the same on --

GRAY: No, obviously not.

BECK: -- and they're going to take it at that, but -- stand in line.

GRAY: "Glenn Beck says --"

BECK: It's not about terror or anything else, it's about politics, and so it becomes more about politics than it does about faith. Orthodox rabbis -- that is about faith. There's not a single orthodox rabbi on this list. This is all reformed rabbis that were -- that made this list.

STU BURGURIERE (executive producer): Yeah, I don't know that for a fact. I know that certainly this organization is a progressive political organization. And that's fine.

BECK: Totally fine.

BURGURIERE: They, you know, just attack and it's ridiculous.