From the
RAC's website:
In response to an opinion piece published this week on Foxnews.com, Rabbi David Saperstein, Director and Counsel of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, sent a letter to Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell asking him to distance himself and his party from the ideas espoused in the piece.
Rabbi Saperstein's letter goes on to say that:
"The intimation that, with these confirmations, our government would become an oppressive and Christian-hating regime rather than a democracy that values freedom of religious expression is a blatant falsehood. Mr. Blackwell’s use of rhetoric invoking the pogroms, the widespread destruction of countless Jewish lives in Eastern Europe, is aimed at quashing reasoned political discourse, suggesting that the confirmation of these qualified, respected nominees is beyond the pale of our normal politics. His likening of Ms. Johnsen and Ms. Feldblum’s confirmations to the persistent and violent killing of Jews in Cossack-controlled Russia desecrates the memory of those who died in the pogroms."
So
Pogroms have become the new Nazis. Good to know someone found a history book that goes back
past the 1930's. Unsaid in Saperstein's letter, but I'm sure one of the more salient points, is that at least one of the nominees is Jewish (I'm assuming, based on the name, that "Chai Feldblum" is a MOT), which gives the use of "pogrom" that extra-special twist. It was so
nice of him to use one of our special words when referring to one of our own! I really feel like he
gets us, and I certainly feel more sympathetic to his cause because he invoked something that was so painful to my ancestors. Painful in the emotional and political sense, naturally, as having your house burned down, or a horse trample you often is.
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