It was a good turnout. Democrat politicians, lots of people in yarmulkes, the Jewish United Fund giving out posters to wave, see below, lots of Tea Party stalwarts. This is a spectrum-spanning coalition indeed.
17 thoughts on “Chicago Stands with Israel, November 20, 2012”
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That is so heartening. I’ve lived all my life in the deep south, and I’m not Jewish. However, I’ve had Jewish friends over the years; in college at Jacksonville University, we clustered in the library after Economics classes to help each other to get that stuff down cold for exams. We scattered to grad schools all over, but in my heart they will always be the smartest friends I’ve ever had.
Good.
Mockingbird – what part of the “deep south” are you from? I ask because I’m from South Carolina, and there “deep south” means Alabama – Mississippi – Louisiana. The rest of the U.S. seems to think it’s anything below Virginia and then west to Texas.
My tiny home town in South Carolina was unusual for having a Catholic church, built in the late 1880s – which I mention only because in much of the South Catholics were historically even rarer than Jews.
My tiny home town had tiny Jewish population, too; when I was a little kid I thought they were some sort of splinter group out of the Jehovah’s Witnesses with unusual food rules. For some reason I didn’t associate them with the Jews of the Bible – that being ancient history and all.
TKT, his mention of JU suggests Florida. Not really part of The South, though technically it is. FL has only a limited amount of similarity to the rest of The South.
IGotBupkis – agree about what you say about FL but around Lake Okeechobee you can think you are in rural Alabama. My uncle took me fishing there once – got up at Oh-dark-thirty in Vero Beach – it was a good drive – 3-4 hours? Had breakfast in a little cafe at Okeechobee – grits and the whole works….
I once had a girl friend who said her brother lived in “LA.” Lower Alabama. That is the DEEP south. I ended up testifying in a malpractice case in lower Alabama a few years ago. It had taken 10 years for the case to get to trial because there was only one judge in that circuit who could hear med-mal cases and he only came every three months. It was really interesting to be there. Tiny courthouse and interesting people. The delay worked to her disadvantage because the surgeon, who had cut her common bile duct, benefited from the fact that she had been sent to U of A in Birmingham and had had an expert job of repairing it. She was ten years post injury with no complications. He had screwed up but no harm, no foul.
I saw a shocking photo yesterday showing Hamas´s brutality: they were dragging a man´s body by the streets of Gaza, accused of being a “collaborationist”, they killed six palestinians. Hamas’ brutal sense of justice rivals that of the Salem witch trials. Of course the media outlet showing the photo, elpais.com, as many other european newspapers are always quick and eager to judge Israel´s actions but invariably restrain their language when referring to Hamas or Hezbollah, these sanguinary terrorists as to be shown respect and consideration from their “fair and balanced” journalists and editors.
Although media outlets around the world may not register this fact, It is my impression that most people around the world are with Israel today, they can see what Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, Alqaeda and all these terrorists pose as victims, as liberators, but they free none, and they are victims of none, but to the contrary, they are thugs that spread chaos and violence everywhere they thrive.
Bill: True, but that area, while large, is thinly populated. Something like 75+% of the entire population of Florida lies along I95 from Palm Beach south, along the I-4 corridor from Tampa to Daytona Beach, and in Jacksonville. Notice the areal difference in the last election. Obama won Florida by winning what is basically six counties, Miami to Palm Beach, Tampa, and Orlando. The other ones are mere dust (yes, they mattered in the final tally it was so close, but the bulk came from those six).
My argument is that those areas really don’t “feel” like most of Florida, nor do they represent it much. The Panhandle region is the most “southlike”, and generally doesn’t seem like Florida, either. It’s where you find the more typical southern “Redneck” of Florida (in the non-pejorative sense) as opposed to the more “dense-suburban” types that are the main part of the Florida population (Florida is a lot like Cali in terms of endless suburban sprawl… all its growth came well after the car was king, and it has even less geographical obstruction than Cali does…. though I’m still surprised that Dade went that strongly for Obama, the Hispanics there are Cuban, and tend to be a lot more conservative than those coming from Mexico).
Oh, and another thing about South Florida is the “stupid liberal” Jews, many/most of whom vote “the straight Democrat ticket” of historical tradition…. another reason why Palm Beach and Broward went so red.
Mildly OT, but
Dave Leip’s US Election Atlas
I’m sure some of you already know it, but it’s probably the best source of election data — both recent and historical (it goes back to the 1790s) around. Incredibly detailed, and very well presented.
Also interesting, from the ever-strange mind of Randall Munroe, an interesting look at the forces in Congress throughout its history.
http://xkcd.com/1127/
Be sure to click on the graphic, it’s very large.
My point was that I am glad to see the rally in Chicago for Israel 2012.
During my growing up, Dad taught at Eastern Kentucky State in Richmond, KY(59-60); years outside Augusta, GA.
After Dad retired to Jacksonville Beach, FL, we would weekend in the old family cabin at Benton, FL, north of Lake City(up by the GA line). All really primitive at the time. However, at each of these locations were a few helpful, friendly, smart as whips Jewish people quietly farming,or in trades of some kind.
North Florida is not like South Florida at all. It is changing, but not as fast as the urban areas. It is joked even today that Jacksonville is the best part of South Georgia. If one looks up the War between the States for North Florida, there was a significant number of Jewish Confederate soldiers at Camp Milton and other “forts” in the area.
Respectfully submitted,
‘bird
* sigh * And just how many of these Chicago Jews who will so faithfully “stand with Israel” voted for their hometown kid, who holds vast personal responsibility for Israel being on the precipice where it now stand today? Ya think it is more or less than the 70% of American Jews who voted for Obama?
I hate the cliche of “I have many Jewish friends”…. but I do. I have sat Seder about six times as an invited guest, always enjoying it (except for the gefilte fish, yeesh!). I say categorically that the Jews are God’s ‘Canary in the Coal Mine’. Any, ANY, society that starts to turn on it’s Jews is now rocketing into the abyss. (Just imagine if the Arab world had treated Israel like China treated Hong Kong for decades. It would have had the same economic results, along with a whole different world.)
And I have flat out given up trying to expect ANY rationality from the American Jewish voter. And now we see Israel with a literal knife to its throat, and American Jews took one look two weeks ago and said, “Meh!” “Whatever. Yay, free birth control! And don’t Republicans suck? They just aren’t cool, like me and my friends are.”
I go to almost all major demonstrations in DC (where I live), just for the heck of it. I went to the ones against Bush. And I have literally, literally been driven to tears trying to confront Jewish friends and colleagues with the anti-Semitic monsters that march in the streets at such times, people whom Josef Goebbels would mint medals for, and I get a stone wall every time – An absolute and deliberately willful refusal to see that which is right in front of them, because to acknowledge the truth is just too much for them. So onward with the lie. “The left are the ‘Jewish-friendly’ ones, they HAVE to be….”
“Stand with Israel”??? Yeah, they “stand with Israel”, two weeks late, when it’s cheap to do so. They don’t have to actually TAKE A STAND in a manner that makes a difference, they just get to stand in the street and wear those comfortable slippers they have worn all their lives, while Israel’s struggle grows ever darker. But it’s not their fault, they are Democrats and they mean well, so it cannot ever be their fault. And guess what? It is.
Sorry. I’m bitter on this topic, and have been for some time. Israel has never, and I mean NEVER, had a better friend than George W. Bush, and American Jews spit in his eye for it, and had a rollicking good laugh while doing so. And now voted for Obama… twice (75% / 70%).
Every time I post something like this, I beg Jewish readers to respond with SOME kind of valid explanation for this. Explanations, I have gotten, valid…… I’m still waiting for.
(The above is me, BTW…. still anon, but a little less so :-)
I wonder if American Jews will learn the lesson that their colleagues in England are learning. A friend of mine, a prominent surgeon and professor of surgery, who is Jewish although I didn’t know until he told me, was worried last time I was there about the English female medical students who are converting to Islam. These girls have no family connections to Islam but are converting for reasons he and I cannot understand. The Labour Party pushed Muslim immigration in the 60s and 70s for reasons similar to those of the Democrats with Hispanics now. Voters. It is having huge effects on the country and many middle class Brits are retiring to France. What is left behind is “Londonstan” and the louts of the Midlands.
MK – I am reminded of a current issue in Santa Monica, where California atheists (also known as “Californians”) have successfully sued to end a decades old tradition of nativities and other Christmas displays that were set up in a couple dozen kiosks of a public park. They made a half-hearted attempt to replace them with some of their own atheist whatever claptrap…. but in the end the result was…. emptiness. Nothing. A series of musty, empty holes, gradually cobwebbed, rather than those horrible offensive nativities and reindeer/Santa diplays that represented a time of magic for millions of us when we were children. Replaced… by vacant, hollow, empty holes.
It took energy, work, dedication, resources for them to produce those empty holes. It didn’t just sort of “happen”. Those holes are a glorious success for them.
And now the young women you speak of, responding to the very vacuum the left has created on your shores, are reacting as centuries of study of human nature could have told anyone they would react. Filling nothing with something, something that the left at least will not viciously assault morning, noon, and night.
Hey folks, anyone know? Is there anything, ANYTHING… that the left can lay its hideous, satanic, gargoyle hands upon that it does not destroy utterly?? I’m genuinely curious.
Are you joking? Of course Chicago has a rally like this. Of course the banners say Chicago, all of Chicago, everyone in the city, stands with Israel. Because the mayor of the city, Rahm Emanuel, is a Zionist. So he uses his office in America to beneift another country, Israel. Because Israel is the face and body and soul of Zionism. Now recall Zionism’s charter is to create Greater Israel, from the Nile to the Euphrates. But aren’t there already other countries in that region? Yes, but they are Arab, so what do they matter compared to Israelis?