It’s hard not to be excited about moving the American embassy to Jerusalem.
I was thrilled to watch two of our country’s current representatives of Judaism — outstanding business magnate Jared Kushner and the generous casino mogul and Jewish settlement financier Sheldon Adelson — representing me and American Jews everywhere at the ceremony. A more ecumenical celebration is hard to imagine, what with pastors John Hagee and Robert Jeffress presiding. I have heard complaints that Jeffress is an anti-Semite, but that is false: he hasn’t singled out Jews because he also disparaged Muslims, Mormons and Catholics.
On July 27, 1656, the rabbis of Amsterdam excommunicated the Portuguese philosopher Baruch Spinoza who “denied the immortality of the soul, rejected the notion of a providential God — the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob — and claimed that the Law was neither literally given by God nor any longer binding on Jews.” Little did he know.
Recent events have proven otherwise. On a single day recently, 61 Palestinians were killed and more than 2,500 injured, including 12 journalists. But when all was said and done, not a single Israeli soldier was killed and only one was slightly injured. Who says we are not chosen?
Spinoza was Albert Einstein’s favorite philosopher and there was a time when I revered Einstein as the person who most represented everything I admired about the Jewish people. No more. Not only did he admire Spinoza, but, adding insult to injury, he turned down the offer to be the first president of Israel.
I have removed his picture from the frame hanging over my desk and replaced it with one of the lovely former shiksa, Ivanka Trump, who was also our representative at the “Jerusalem: Capital of Israel” festivities. She is one of us now, and wow, she also has her own line of clothing.
Ernie Urvater
Amherst