An Appeal to Jeffrey Goldberg's Children

Jeffrey Goldberg seems to delight in taking a swipe at fellow Jews.

In a blog post dealing mainly with Mel Gibson and a possible movie about the Maccabees, Goldberg can't constrain his 'put-down' frenzy of other Jews:

What Gibson didn't mention was the doughnuts. The doughnuts are very important. I'm off to find the doughnuts. I'll be skipping the Lubavitcher lighting of the world's crassest menorah outside the White House. Getting the doughnuts seems more important. See you tomorrow.

Preferring to gain weight rather than observe the lighting of Hanukah lights is probably crass itself but there is something else that bothers me about this.

In criticizing Israel's attempt to draw back its citizens through adverts that raised a hue and cry, Goldberg contributed this:

[Absorption] Minister [Sophia] Landver is worried about my children's Jewish future, I thought I would issue an invitation: The next time she visits Washington, she is invited to Shabbat dinner at my home. She can quiz my children about their Jewishness, and she can observe a Jewish family in America being, well, Jewish. We'll make a very nice dinner, and we'll have a very interesting conversation. I'm serious, by the way.

Well, since Goldberg put out his children into the public square, allow me to address them:

Dear children of Jeffrey Goldberg,

Please, don't grow up and act like your father. Don't refer to a symbol of Jewish religious practice, of national legacy and cultural heritage as crass, even if it is. Be generous with your fellow Jews, especially if their contribution is actually strengthening Jewish identity, even as a mosaic. Don't demean any Jewish expression of proud identification with a great people just to find favor with your friends or your readers, if you choose to be writers. That would be a non-Jewish and a crass thing to do.

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