Thursday, August 20, 2009

Obama Leans On Rabbis To Push Obamacare - During High Holy Day Services


September and October are the occasion of the two holiest and most important days in the Jewish religion. Rosh Hashana is the new year that signals the start of the Days of Awe and a spiritual rebirth and re-examination signaled by the blowing of the Shofar that leads, ten days later, to Yom Kippur, the Day of atonement. These are referred to as High Holy Days, when even largely secular and non-observant Jews who normally don't attend go to synagogues to focus on their spiritual well being, repent of their sins,and learn Torah. It's not a day devoted to secular concerns or politics.

It's also the time Barack Hussein Obama wants Rabbis to lean on their congregations to be good Democrats, call their congressmen and shill for Obamacare:

Yesterday, President Obama participated in a conference call with about 1,000 rabbis in anticipation of the High Holy Days next month—and the sermons the rabbis will give. The purpose of the call was, apparently, to urge the rabbis to support ObamaCare, or something like it, from the pulpit.

Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun Times writes that the call was left off the Obama schedule—an interesting note, she writes, on “Obama White House selective transparency.” Jodi Kantor of the New York Times cites a participant’s tweet that the president told the rabbis “I am going to need your help.”

The call was a joint effort of the Central Conference of American Rabbis and the Union for Reform Judaism (URJ), the Rabbinical Assembly, and the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association, coordinated by the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism. The URJ invitation read, in part, as follows:

This year, the debate over health care reform dominates public discourse, and the conference call will explore the Jewish textual and historical imperative for universal, affordable health care.

We are pleased to announce that President Barack Obama will participate in a High Holy Day conference call exclusively for rabbis. . . .

This call can provide valuable information when you decide to preach on this issue whether on the High Holy Days, during the August 28-30 national health care sermon weekend (more info at FaithforHealth.org), or whenever is appropriate for you.

A rabbinic student who received the URJ invitation and participated in the call sent me an e-mail about it that read, in part:

President Obama spoke for about 20 minutes, then got off the call and we listened to three other rabbis who had prepared discussions about “helpful” Torah and Talmud texts, and how to craft a “non-political” (that is, pro-Democratic Party but wouldn’t be able to get into legal trouble) sermon. . . .

Pres Obama urged us explicitly to discuss healthcare reform in our high holiday sermons. He said repeatedly, “I need your help in getting this information across.” My personal feeling is that it is an abuse of the pulpit to propagate a specific political agenda in that venue. . . .

• The issue was always framed as: we need to care about healthcare reform. And too many people don’t care about it. Our job as rabbis is, apparently, to urge people to care about it. My points would be: (1) of course everyone cares about healthcare reform; we just don’t agree how to fix it; (2) to stand in front of a congregation and imply that members of the congregation do not currently care about the health and treatment of their fellow Americans is insulting and self-aggrandizing. . . .

• Pres Obama repeatedly said that there “are fears” that people who currently have healthcare would lose it, but that’s not the case—that under this bill, you can keep whatever health insurance you currently have. That doesn’t match up with what I’ve read about this bill. But whatever. In any case, I can’t see how this information would be something that rabbis should be saying from the bimah. . . .

The URJ invitation to the call with Obama ended with this suggestion:

Health care reform is a critical issue for all of us. . . . [We] hope you will . . . urge your congregants to contact their elected officials in support of health care reform this year.



I have to wonder at the Rabbis that agreed to participate in this.Given, they're Reform and Reconstructionist, which puts them solidly on the Left to far Left of the Jewish spectrum, but no matter what their political views are, you would think even they recognize this for what it is- blatant disrespect for both the religion they claim to profess and its practitioners.

Obviously a number of them are so consumed and twisted with self-disgust or flattered to be talking to Obama that they're unable to recognize an anti-Semitic insult when it's blatantly thrown in their faces.

Only a president with a cynical and essentially hostile view of Jews and Judaism would have been comfortable with the bitter sham of muscling Jewish clergymen to profane the most sacred Holy days of their religion just to score political points for him and his administration. It's beyond despicable.

It's the equivalent of pushing Left-leaning Christian clergy to preach abortion rights during their Easter Sermons.

So, let's recap - to date, we've seen President Obama appoint or attempt to appoint a number of 'anti-Zionists' to his administration, work to prohibit Jews from building homes in their own country, fund genocidal groups like Hamas and Hezbollah and award the Presidential Medal of Freedom to unapologetic anti-Semites.

Now, as President Obama's Jew hating spiritual mentor Jeremiah Wright might say,we're seeing the chickens come home to roost.It's not just those pesky Zionists anymore, just as I warned many times.

How much crap will Obama's Jewish supporters eat before they start noticing the smell and the taste? When will they admit to what a horrible mistake they've made?

Selah.


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I never saw this was motivated and "encouraged" by Obama before this- I had already been furious about the rabbi schtupping for Obama health plan by telling sad anecdotes and trying to change it into a sermon about "helping people" (Yom Kippur, no less)
If she would have said- volunteer at a hospice or hospital it would be appropriate but to RUIN my holiday by remindng me what schmucks my fellow JEWS are being by supporting O'Bumbler - I have sworn off going to temple ever again- it was disgraceful that the rabbi felt it was OK to bring personal political views into shul but to find it was PLANTED by Obama,for the rabbi to be campaigning for O in shul- well -- I am outraged