The Australian's editorialist has never sounded more... Talmudic:
"Chutzpah, in the true Hebrew meaning of the word, is not the admirable sort of audacity for which we tend to use the word now. Real chutzpah it is said, is the sort of impertinence that sees a man accused of murdering his parents beg for mercy on the grounds that he's an orphan. So the term is apt to describe the brazen way the Marrickville Council, in Sydney's inner west, has gotten above its station by implementing an economic boycott against Israel." (Middle East shames inner west, 19/4/11)
You don't chutzpah Israel and get away with it lightly, OK?
Bob Brown "needs urgently to... eliminate the loopy anti-Israel sentiment from his ranks."
Mandatory exorcisms for Marrickville's watermelons maybe?
Julia Gillard "must ensure that her party's strong support for Israel is not compromised again by such jejune antics from elected officials."
A re-education camp for its rats in the ranks perhaps?
But then that's The Australian for you. Don't be surprised if one day you hear that News Limited has moved, lock, stock and Barry O'Farrell, to, say, Kiryat Arba. And just remember - you heard it here first.
As for the rest of us, I think it'd be true to say we're a tad less Talmudic than The Australian, and would tend to agree with Jewish scholar Louis Jacobs when he says of chutzpah that "there is often a grudging admiration for chutzpah in the Jewish tradition... [It] is particularly admired when it consists of standing up bravely against the powerful or when it is an expression of sheer determination to overcome seemingly insurmountable odds." (The Jewish Religion, 1995, p 81)
Now who does that remind you of?
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2 comments:
Crucify him (her)!
Too kind perhaps?
I notice that a charming fellow name of Yaakov Gorr has written a piece at galusaustralis.com in which he refers to "red spots affecting the Marrickville Town Hall."
He then goes on to speculate, "supposedly the spreaders of evil speech will be taken outside the organisation until they are considered to be ritually pure..."
The title of his piece: "Victorian Greens dealing with Levitical Leprosy."
As the Angry Arab always says, 'Imagine if this were written by a Muslim.'
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