Have fun hanging out with Adolf Hitler, Koffler.

But seriously, I'll miss you around these parts. Good luck doing the Philosophy thing, and say hi to The Queen for me (just mention February 2002, eight snake bites, and the "royal cavalry." She'll remember, and she'll blush profusely before retiring to her chambers for a fortnight.)

"Wishing for things to remain broken can only indicate that you live in a bubble where this brokenness means quaint Diaspora culture, not persecution and suffering."

I'm not sure what this sentence means. I don't understand how you can claim to guess what the woman meant when she said "May it remain broken!" I would love to hear how not rebuilding the Temple is the same thing as "persecution and suffering." Mostly, I don't understand how the brokenness equals "quaint Diaspora culture," or how it indicates, in your later musing, "defeatism." In fact, I'm not sure what you're talking about at all, but I will say this: Refusing to capitulate to delusionally eschatological fanaticism is not the same thing as "defeatism."

As for your sentence "religious Zionism is perceived as a crude and dangerous idea, an obstacle to peace, and a violent and chauvinistic perversion of Jewish values." -- Very well put.  I would only add that it is perceived thusly by people who are sane.

Also: Every single person who lives in "the Land of Israel" still lives in Diaspora. To believe otherwise is to be an idolater -- another "very Jewish thing" to be.

Please continue.

Koffler, it's your turn.

I think it's the cleavage that was making this rabbi apoplectic, no?

HAHAHAHAHA, thank you, thank you, I'll be here till Tuesday, then I'll be opening at the Tropicana.

"The no-holds barred survival of Jews, Israel, or any combination of the two may be "out of touch" or "morally execrable" ..."

Don’t twist it. It’s not the survival that is morally execrable but the ideology – in this case, ideology that insists Jews be amoral or even immoral even in areas that have only a tangential relationship to Israel’s military superiority over Arabs. You might find it pleasing, and within the range of your own ideology, to insist that what I am saying is that Jewish survival is morally execrable. But that's a leap of logic found nowhere in what I wrote.

"...to a certain class of American middle to upper class Jew..."

Oh, come on. Have you painted me with a Vanilla Soy Frappuccino yet? Does that help the smugness, too?

"...but for a large number of, shall we say, more Jewish Jews?"

Please do me a favor and define "more Jewish Jews." Then tell me, what percentage of Jews fit your definition of "more Jewish Jews"? Assuming this classification includes Jews who are observant at some level, and who filter most or all of their own experiences and everything they see and read and hear through an exclusively Jewish lens (is that what you meant?), then can we agree that this group comprises less than 20 percent of Jews today? 25 percent? That is a minority, RW.

But back to the main point: Dror is speaking for a minority of Jews. Just as a majority of Jews (maybe nobody you know, but a majority still) disapproves of George W. Bush, a majority of Jews would find Dror's viewpoints to be out of touch or morally execrable. Whether the Jewish majority has anything to do with the organizations that claim to represent them is the main issue here, and the main problem.

Maayan,

At first you said Israel was "OUR" homeland, then you said "this piece of land is Biblically and culturally important to ME." Which of those capitalized words represents your perspective? Because many Jews -- many, many, many, many Jews, Jews who are ethnically, culturally, religiously and even nationally proud -- do not consider Israel to be their homeland or even the homeland of all Jews. This in no way diminishes their Jewishness. There are those who find the insistence that Israel take center stage in our consciousness to be more than a litte off-putting, even propagandistic.

Not me, of course. I LOVE ISRAELLLLLLLL!!!!!! LOL ROTFL

This was probably a more tasteful Shawn Carter reference than the alleged use of "99 Problems" after Iowa.

Add this and you've got a full meal.

I highly recommend the recently-published A Living Lens, which documents, through troves of photos from the newspaper's archives, the amazing things he did with The Jewish Daily Forward.

Kelsey, what's amazing -- and, to be honest, somewhat worrisome, and, if people were actually listening here, tragic -- about your monomaniacal obsession with mass transit is your perplexing inability to connect the dots. I'm gonna write this as clearly as I can, so clearly that even an overeager hipster with his nose stuck in his "Common Yiddish Phrases" Dictionary (bought used, of course, at The Strand, for 59 cents, after a long ride on the 1 Train from the Upper West Side) can understand:

1. Yes, we are addicted to oil.

2. Yes, we need nationwide mass transit of a level and quality far superior to that which exists today.

3. The influence of money in politics is what keeps us from ever getting to #2.

4. That money comes from oil corporations and from foreign governments.

Now why have you so consistently refused to admit that these things are related? Why, in post after post, have you justifiably condemned our addiction to oil in this country, while at the same time -- sometimes, mystifyingly, in the very same sentence! -- insisting that the influence of money in politics has nothing to do with this? Why can you not see that your dream of universal mass transit will never be a reality as long as we are governed by oil gluttons and their tyrannical enablers abroad? Why, to use this very post as an example, have you not looked into Obama's filings to determine to what degree foreign oil monarchies have propped up his campaign, to compare it with the degree to which foreign oil monarchies have propped up the Clintons? I am going to take a leap here by presuming you will agree, at least in private, that the candidate who receives more money from oil companies and oil oligarchies is LESS likely to implement a mass transit system in our country. (Can you at least agree on that, Kelsey? Don't do it in public, I know it'll hurt. Shoot me an email. Use a fake name if it helps.)

I can think of two explanations for your refusal to connect the dots.

1. You have that problem involving the frontal lobes, where it's difficult for you to work out simple cognition skills. I don't know the medical term for this, but in plain English it's called a lobotomy. These were popular in the 50s, but I'm pretty sure they're relatively rare today. If this is indeed the reason for the way your brain functions (I'm using that term loosely), I strongly recommend you blog about it. It'll be a great complement to your posts about some ultra-Orthodox guy's music tastes and how the blacks are coming to get us.

2. You are working for the Saudi Royal Family. This is actually a more logical explanation than #1, as I don't think you're dumb, just sometimes an imbecile, and that's okay, it's part of what gives you your "charm," the same way, for instance, that a small child, after wetting his or her pants, will have that reddish flush on their face betraying confusion, embarrassment, and a barely discernible trace of rage. That's you, and that's why you blog, and again, that's okay.

I'm just saying there has to be some logical explanation for why, over and over again, you exhort us to public transit while lashing out at people -- myself in the past, Koffler here -- for mentioning that the influence of money in our politics is one of the reasons we're so screwed up. And it's why there will never be the kind of mass transit in this country you keep getting your throat so sore over.

So here's a question for you to answer, hopefully with greater alacrity than the Clintons disclosing what oil-drenched hands have been dropping millions into their bank accounts:

Are you working for the Saudi Royal Family?

Because I know you can't be making enough at your own "Jewish" "hipster" magazine.

So just tell us -- in round terms, I'm not looking for a full IRS filing here -- how much are they paying you for these constant defenses? $350,000 a quarter? Is it just the Saudis, or the UAE too? Dubai? And do they pay you extra for the posts where you stand on your tricycle shouting about mass transit, knowing full well it's a red herring given our addiction to oil reinforced by their infusion of cash throughout our political system?

Do they buy you bagels and rugelach too? They're nothing if not shrewd, and I know they'd want you to continue feeling like an LES Jewish hipster even while shilling for Big Oil.

Look inside your heart and give us the honest figure, Kelsey. I'll give you till tomorrow night to sort through your stubs, invoices, receipts and knishes.