Reaction

My first piece on the New Jersey organ trafficking ring received a fair amount of attention. Czech and French translations now exist. (You may have to scroll down for the French version of my piece; also see here.)

I don't know Czech at all and thus cannot comment on the quality of that translation. Although my French is poor, I can see that the translation into that language was done to a high professional standard. It's always interesting to see how a translator handles slang and word-play.

The major media seem content to let this story slip away. No journalists have deigned to mention the related Brazilian case, in which an Israeli army officer admitted that his government was behind the ring.

Nearly all of the coverage presumes that a kidney can jump into a new host via magic. (Visualize Dumbledore pointing his wand at one body and then the other: "Organus Switcherus!") No articles -- aside from this brief opinion piece -- have asked about the doctors who do the work. Even the FBI has bent over backwards to exonerate them. Time Magazine studiously ignores the issue of collusion by noted hospitals, even though -- as we have seen -- Nancy Scheper-Hughes has video evidence implicating Mount Sinai.

Laudably, Time does note the Israeli connection to the related topic of New Jersey political corruption. An expert on the ultra-Orthodox community observes that secular law is often derided and skirted, even though every phoneme of religious law is considered inviolate:

But the dark side of this is a mentality that often too easily slides into rationalizations for acts that cannot be rationalized, with the idea that the end justifies the means. Here we are raising money for charitable institutions, and therefore we're allowed to cut corners." Halevi adds, "There have been other examples in the past of drug-running happening under cover of certain religious institutions here.

One of my previous stories on this topic prompted this response:

I just happened on your post. I'm an Orthodox Jew and have taken some heat for my work on behalf of victims of child sexual abuse, many of them in Orthodox Jewish communities. (Anyone interested can read all about my work on my web site, MichaelLesher.com.)

I have little to add to what you wrote; I just want you to know that I understand and agree, and that you should not feel uncomfortable writing as you did. Our religious communities will never really mature until we stop putting tribal loyalty over moral values. And it is certainly not anti-Semitic to say so.

I quite agree. Lesher's excellent site is here; his articles make clear that, in Judaism as in Catholicism, religion has too often provided cover for child sexual abuse.

It certainly was not anti-Catholic to discuss the abuse scandal that still rocks the church, and it certainly should not be considered anti-Semitic to discuss abusive rabbis. No-one is off the hook: Protestant clerics are just as likely to interfere sexually with young people, as this earlier post makes clear.

Hatred: You think I'm harsh in my treatment of our president? Check out the Israeli right. See here:

Members of National Union, Likud and Israel Beiteinu led the crowd, which included Kahanists wearing t-shirts saying “Kahane was right,” referring to Meir Kahane’s ideology of violence against all who stand in the way of the constant expansion of Jewish territory.

The people that attended the rally think that occupying another people and chanting racist slurs at the first black president of the United States (who was elected by a majority of American Jews who support him) is their expression of freedom and democracy. As a humanist and a pragmatist, it can feel very uneasy and unsafe in this country.

Most people we talked to did not hesitate to attack Obama and his administration, of which many are Jews themselves. The general atmosphere of the rally was that Obama is a Muslim and a racist who denies the Jewish people their right to control the Land of Israel. When asked about American aid to Israel, most replied that this was a separate issue.

This "Obama as racist" meme would be hilarious if the situation were not so frightening. These rallies received positive coverage on the notorious WorldNet Daily site:

"Obama should not be pressing Israel to compromise and freeze building in Judea, Samaria and eastern Jerusalem," protest organizer Yaacov Steinberg told WND.

"How dare he tell the Jews where they can or can't live! The era when Jews were banned from living in different places has ended," Waldman exclaimed.

The story quote Netanyahu as saying:

"Imagine what would happen if someone were to suggest Jews could not live in or purchase [property] in certain neighborhoods in London, New York, Paris or Rome..."

Are Palestinians free to live wherever they please? Apparently not. A sign at the rally read "Jordan is Palestine." That phrase is a rallying cry for Jews who believe in ethnic cleansing -- a final solution for the Palestinian problem.

And yet these bigots decry Obama as a racist!

Incidentally, the marching bigots soon started issuing threats, as bigots are wont to do. The following comes from the abominable Rabbi Waldman:

"Obama beware. This insolence will bring about the downfall of the American leadership. Anyone who dares give an order to prevent Israeli life in Jerusalem or anywhere else in the land of Israel is destined to fall," he said.

That should be taken as a death threat. You want to talk about insolence? Rabbi Waldman has demonstrated that he is a true expert.