{"id":35,"date":"2008-07-28T12:56:19","date_gmt":"2008-07-28T12:56:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/windowsanddoors\/2008\/07\/obama-drama-at-western-wall-co.html"},"modified":"2008-07-28T12:56:19","modified_gmt":"2008-07-28T12:56:19","slug":"obama-drama-at-western-wall-co","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/2008\/07\/obama-drama-at-western-wall-co.html","title":{"rendered":"Obama Drama At Western Wall Continues"},"content":{"rendered":"

My recent post about Barack Obama’s Western Wall prayer<\/a> drew the attention of American Spectator contributing editor Jay Homnick<\/a>, who was mentioned in it.
\nHis comment:
\nHow could I be said to be abusing a religious tradition for partisan ends? I criticized Obama and his team for crass behavior and I demonstrated the basis for the complaint. How is that partisan? And how is that abuse?
\nIt is instructive that you do not mention the issue at hand; namely, the hanging of huge political posters in the Square in front of the Wall.
\nThis is a “shining” example of the pot calling the kettle black? That is your fair-minded judgment?
\nAnd what is your second paragraph maintaining? That the Wailing Wall should not be viewed as a holy place that inspires the Jews of the world? This essay leaves me utterly befuddled.
\nPosted by: Jay D. Homnick | July 27, 2008 11:15 PM
\nMy response:
\nWell Jay, I love that you read the post and hope that you will see this as well. Even more, I hope that you read and comment regularly.
\nYour “abuse” of the tradtion (admittedly a harsher term than one which I would normally use, but fair in this case because it wasintroduced by you to the conversation), comes in the form of sharing an isolated midrash to prove a particular political point. There is a midrash to “prove” anything, which is a strength of rabbinic literature, but a fact which demands greater modesty on the part of those who use it.
\nAnd while I appreciate your saying that you are “befuddled”, we both know that is not true. You are far too smart for that. What you are is poorly informed about Jewish history. You assume a false dichotomy between “a holy place that inspires Jews” and one which can be used, as it always has been, for politcal purposes.
\nNot to mention that you keep insisting that it is a place of inspiration for Jews, suggesting that it can be one others as well. That too is disturbing but for other reasons and to be discussed at some other time.
\nWhat do you think?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My recent post about Barack Obama’s Western Wall prayer drew the attention of American Spectator contributing editor Jay Homnick, who was mentioned in it. His comment: How could I be said to be abusing a religious tradition for partisan ends? I criticized Obama and his team for crass behavior and I demonstrated the basis for…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,2,1,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-judaism","category-news","category-politics","category-religion"],"yoast_head":"\nObama Drama At Western Wall Continues - Windows and Doors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/2008\/07\/obama-drama-at-western-wall-co.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Obama Drama At Western Wall Continues - Windows and Doors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"My recent post about Barack Obama’s Western Wall prayer drew the attention of American Spectator contributing editor Jay Homnick, who was mentioned in it. His comment: How could I be said to be abusing a religious tradition for partisan ends? I criticized Obama and his team for crass behavior and I demonstrated the basis for…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/2008\/07\/obama-drama-at-western-wall-co.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Windows and Doors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-07-28T12:56:19+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Brad Hirschfield\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Obama Drama At Western Wall Continues - Windows and Doors","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/2008\/07\/obama-drama-at-western-wall-co.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Obama Drama At Western Wall Continues - Windows and Doors","og_description":"My recent post about Barack Obama’s Western Wall prayer drew the attention of American Spectator contributing editor Jay Homnick, who was mentioned in it. His comment: How could I be said to be abusing a religious tradition for partisan ends? I criticized Obama and his team for crass behavior and I demonstrated the basis for…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/2008\/07\/obama-drama-at-western-wall-co.html","og_site_name":"Windows and Doors","article_published_time":"2008-07-28T12:56:19+00:00","author":"Brad Hirschfield","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/2008\/07\/obama-drama-at-western-wall-co.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/2008\/07\/obama-drama-at-western-wall-co.html","name":"Obama Drama At Western Wall Continues - Windows and Doors","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/#website"},"datePublished":"2008-07-28T12:56:19+00:00","dateModified":"2008-07-28T12:56:19+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/#\/schema\/person\/dec8532a46bb6f29d8866269e398424d"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/2008\/07\/obama-drama-at-western-wall-co.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/2008\/07\/obama-drama-at-western-wall-co.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/2008\/07\/obama-drama-at-western-wall-co.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Obama Drama At Western Wall Continues"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/","name":"Windows and Doors","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Rabbi Brad Hirschfield","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/#\/schema\/person\/dec8532a46bb6f29d8866269e398424d","name":"Brad Hirschfield","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/612\/612c840fab7383fcd474af006f999c1fx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/612\/612c840fab7383fcd474af006f999c1fx96.jpg","caption":"Brad Hirschfield"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/author\/brad_hirschfield"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/133"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}