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From: Terry Kafka
Sent: 11/4/2013 4:06:12 PM
To: Michael S. Buchholtz
CC: Jeffery Edwards [jeevacation@gmail.com]; Mark L. Epstein
Subject: FW: Rabbi Steven Pruzansky
Attachments: image001.gif; image001.gif
Importance: High
MB: this sums up my feelings on the direction of the country and the blind loyalty of Democratic Jews. I trust I do not
offend. Its blunt but in many ways true. tk
From: Brad Bowen [mailto
Sent: Monday, November 04, 2013 9:42 AM
To: Terry Kafka
Subject: Fwd: Rabbi Steven Pruzansky
Sent from my iPhone
Begin forwarded message:
From: Fred Simon
Date: November 3, 2013 at 4:07:53 PM CST
To: Ralph Simon ________________________
Subject: Rabbi Steven Pruzansky
VERY INTERESTING. G
, Fred Simon
The problems we face today are there because the people who
work for a living are outnumbered by those who vote for a
We Are Not Coming Back
Please take a moment to digest this provocative article by a
Jewish Rabbi from Teaneck, N.J.
It is far and away the most succinct and thoughtful
explanation of how our nation is changing. The article
appeared in The Israel National News, and is directed to
Jewish readership. 70% of American Jews vote as Democrats.
The Rabbi has some interesting comments in that regard.
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Rabbi Steven Pruzansky is the spiritual leader of
Congregation Bnai Yeshurun in Teaneck, New Jersey
"The most charitable way of explaining the election results of 2012 is that Americans voted
for the status quo - for the incumbent President and for a divided Congress. They must enjoy
gridlock, partisanship, incompetence, economic stagnation and avoidance of responsibility.
And fewer people voted.
But as we awake from the nightmare, it is important to eschew the facile explanations for the
Romney defeat that will prevail among the chattering classes. Romney did not lose because
of the effects of Hurricane Sandy that devastated this area, nor did he lose because he ran a
poor campaign, nor did he lose because the Republicans could have chosen better
candidates, nor did he lose because Obama benefited from a slight uptick in the economy
due to the business cycle.
Romney lost because he didn't get enough votes to win.
That might seem obvious, but not for the obvious reasons. Romney lost because the
conservative virtues - the traditional American virtues — of liberty, hard work, free enterprise,
private initiative and aspirations to moral greatness - no longer inspire or animate a majority
of the electorate.
The simplest reason why Romney lost was because it is impossible to compete against free
stuff.
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Every businessman knows this; that is why the "loss leader" or the giveaway is such a
powerful marketing tool. Obama's America is one in which free stuff is given away: the adults
among the 47,000,000 on food stamps clearly recognized for whom they should vote, and so
they did, by the tens of millions; those who - courtesy of Obama - receive two full years of
unemployment benefits (which, of course, both disincentivizes looking for work and also
motivates people to work off the books while collecting their windfall) surely know for whom
to vote. The lure of free stuff is irresistible.
The defining moment of the whole campaign was the revelation of the secretly-recorded video
in which Romney acknowledged the difficulty of winning an election in which "47% of the
people" start off against him because they pay no taxes and just receive money - "free stuff" -
from the government.
Almost half of the population has no skin in the game - they
don't care about high taxes, promoting business, or creating
jobs, nor do they care that the money for their free stuff is
being borrowed from their children and from the Chinese.
They just want the free stuff that comes their way at someone
else's expense. In the end, that 47% leaves very little margin
for error for any Republican, and does not bode well for the
future.
It is impossible to imagine a conservative candidate winning against such overwhelming
odds. People do vote their pocketbooks. In essence, the people vote for a Congress who will
not raise their taxes, and for a President who will give them free stuff, never mind who has to
pay for it.
That engenders the second reason why Romney lost: the inescapable conclusion that the
electorate is ignorant and uninformed. Indeed, it does not pay to be an informed voter,
because most other voters - the clear majority — are unintelligent and easily swayed by
emotion and raw populism. That is the indelicate way of saying that too many people vote
with their hearts and not their heads. That is why Obama did not have to produce a second
term agenda, or even defend his first-term record. He needed only to portray Mitt Romney as
a rapacious capitalist who throws elderly women over a cliff, when he is not just snatching
away their cancer medication, while starving the poor and cutting taxes for the rich.
During his 1956 presidential campaign, a woman called out to Adlai Stevenson: "Senator, you
have the vote of every thinking person!" Stevenson called back: "That's not enough, madam,
we need a majority!"
Truer words were never spoken.
Obama could get away with saying that "Romney wants the rich to play by a different set of
rules" - without ever defining what those different rules were; with saying that the "rich
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should pay their fair share" - without ever defining what a "fair share" is; with saying that
Romney wants the poor, elderly and sick to "fend for themselves" - without even
acknowledging that all these government programs are going bankrupt, their current
insolvency only papered over by deficit spending.
Similarly, Obama (or his surrogates) could hint to blacks that a Romney victory would lead
them back into chains and proclaim to women that their abortions and birth control would be
taken away. He could appeal to Hispanics that Romney would have them all arrested and
shipped to Mexico and unabashedly state that he will not enforce the current immigration
laws. He could espouse the furtherance of the incestuous relationship between governments
and unions - in which politicians ply the unions with public money, in exchange for which the
unions provide the politicians with votes, in exchange for which the politicians provide more
money and the unions provide more votes, etc., even though the money is gone.
Obama also knows that the electorate has changed -
America (they're already a minority in California) and that the new immigrants to the US are
primarily from the Third World and do not share the traditional American values that attracted
immigrants in the 19th and 20th centuries. It is a different world, and a different America.
Obama is part of that different America, knows it, and knows how to tap into it. That is why
he won.
that whites will soon be a minority in
Obama also proved again that negative advertising works, invective sells, and harsh personal
attacks succeed. That Romney never engaged in such diatribes points to his essential
goodness as a person; his "negative ads" were simple facts, never personal abuse - facts
about high unemployment, lower take-home pay, a loss of American power and prestige
abroad, a lack of leadership, etc. As a politician, though, Romney failed because he did not
embrace the devil's bargain of making unsustainable promises.
It turned out that it was not possible for Romney and Ryan - people of substance, depth and
ideas - to compete with the shallow populism and platitudes of their opponents. Obama
mastered the politics of envy — of class warfare - never reaching out to Americans as such
but to individual groups, and cobbling together a winning majority from these minority
groups. If an Obama could not be defeated - with his record and his vision of America, in
which free stuff seduces voters - it is hard to envision any change in the future.
The road to Hillary Clinton in 2016 and to a European-socialist
economy - those very economies that are collapsing today in
Europe - is paved.
For Jews, mostly assimilated anyway and staunch Democrats, the results demonstrate again
that liberalism is their Torah. Almost 70% voted for a
president widely perceived by Israelis and most committed Jews as hostile to Israel . They
voted to secure Obama's future at America 's expense and at Israel 's expense - in effect,
preferring Obama to Netanyahu by a wide margin.
A dangerous time is ahead. Under present circumstances, it is
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inconceivable that the US will take any aggressive action
against Iran and will more likely thwart any Israeli initiative.
The US will preach the importance of negotiations up until the
production of the first Iranian nuclear weapon - and then state
that the world must learn to live with this new reality.
But this election should be a wake-up call to Jews. There is no permanent empire, nor is there
an enduring haven for Jews anywhere in the exile. The American empire began to decline in
2007, and the deterioration has been exacerbated in the last five years. This election only
hastens that decline.
Society is permeated with sloth, greed, envy and materialistic excess. It has lost its moorings
and its moral foundations.. The takers outnumber the givers, and that will only increase in
years to come.
The "Occupy" riots across this country in the last two years
were mere dress rehearsals for what lies ahead - years of
unrest sparked by the increasing discontent of the
unsuccessful who want to seize the fruits and the bounty of
the successful, and do not appreciate the slow pace of
redistribution.
If this election proves one thing, it is that the Old America is gone And, sad for the world, it is
not coming back."
The problems we face today are there because the people who
work for a living are outnumbered by those who vote for a
living.
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