If Dennis Prager is Not a Self-hating Jew, He is Simply Insane
(posted by Mona)
Sen. John McCain finally threw Rev. John Hagee and Hagee’s endorsement under the bus when it was revealed by a number of sources, including Sam Stein at HuffPo, that Hagee sermonized in the 90s about Hitler as God’s glorious tool of righteousness (Stein has the audio, so one may listen for oneself):
John Hagee, the controversial evangelical leader and endorser of Sen. John McCain, argued in a late 1990s sermon that the Nazis had operated on God’s behalf to chase the Jews from Europe and shepherd them to Palestine. According to the Reverend, Adolph Hitler was a “hunter,” sent by God, who was tasked with expediting God’s will of having the Jews re-establish a state of Israel.
Going in and out of biblical verse, Hagee preached: “‘And they the hunters should hunt them,’ that will be the Jews. ‘From every mountain and from every hill and from out of the holes of the rocks.’ If that doesn’t describe what Hitler did in the holocaust you can’t see that.”
Soooo. Last Friday on his radio show, right-wing, neoconservative hack Dennis Prager defended — exalted, actually — Hagee (amidst many avowals of Prager’s bona fides as a Jewish theologian, advisor to rabbis etc.), and declared Hagee quite correct! Hagee is a man of God who loves the Jews, and his claims about the Holocaust as God’s punishment for failing to get themselves to Israel tout de suite are, you see, entirely consonant with Jewish theology as well. Prager actually announces that any Jewish people taking exception to Hagee’s deplorable views need to get on their knees and beg forgiveness!
You only need waste your time with the first 9-12 minutes of Prager’s bizarre exercise (if anyone spots a transcript I’ll excerpt the choice bits); that was more than enough to leave me slack-jawed. Prager’s ravings are one of the best examples of the utter derangement that now passes for Serious commentary from Serious pundits on the right.
May 28th, 2008 at 4:57 pm
[...] Pimping my latest topic at AoTP: A Jewish radio pundit who finds it true that — as a Xian fundie minister says, Hitler was [...]
May 28th, 2008 at 9:40 pm
Does Hagee ever actually say the words “glorious tool of righteousness”, Mona, or is that your gloss on his sermon?
Certainly the idea that some enemy of the Jews is working out the will of God is not alien to Jewish theology. If Nebuchadnezzar can be the tool of God (see the Book of Lamentations), then why not Hitler?
May 28th, 2008 at 9:56 pm
Avram: Did you see quotation marks round the phrase “glorious tool of righteousness” in my post? No? I thought not.
If you, Avram, think it is sensible to describe Hitler as God’s tool (instrument, errand boy or whatever) vis-a-vis the Jews, well, I do not know what more to say to you.
May 29th, 2008 at 3:13 pm
The ads on this page point to the book “What Every Woman Wants In A Man“. Apparently Hagee co-wrote it with his wife.
May 29th, 2008 at 7:19 pm
But if you read the book, then couldn’t you call yourself “most amused?”
May 30th, 2008 at 2:08 am
Fear not, Mona. By definition, nobody on the right can be a self-hating Jew. And the main criterion for self-hating Jewhood is being critical of Israel. Since Hagee just hates Jews, but loves Iz-rull, Prager’s in the clear.
May 30th, 2008 at 12:55 pm
And if you, Mona, aren’t prepared to address what Hagee actually said, and what the actual history of Jewish theology actually says, rather than just making up your own little stories, well, I don’t know what more to say to you, either.
May 30th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
Avram,
The idea of speaking truth to power, and pronouncing God’s damnation on a country, isn’t alien to Jewish (or Christian) theology, either. The sort of stuff the prophets said about Israel under Ahab and Jezebel, or Judah under Manasseh, make Jeremiah Wright’s words pale in comparison. But that didn’t stop the Religious Right, who think “God’n'country” is one word, from crucifying him.
May 30th, 2008 at 3:20 pm
Kevin, I’m well aware of how Wright was treated. I think it was despicable. But it wasn’t the religious right that did it, it was the mainstream media, moderate conservatives, and then moderate liberals. I know plenty of Democrats who glibly dismiss Wright as a lunatic.
May 30th, 2008 at 4:08 pm
Avram:And if you, Mona, aren’t prepared to address what Hagee actually said, and what the actual history of Jewish theology actually says, rather than just making up your own little stories, well, I don’t know what more to say to you, either.
I made up no “little” stories.” I quoted from an outraged Jewish critic of Hagee’s, who in turn, and as I noted, linked to the entire audio of Hagee’s sermon.
Raised Roman Catholic as I was, I was indoctrinated to believe in the salvific power of suffering. But I would not apply that (in my view) pernicious doctrine to, say, the dead and family of 9/11, or the Jews vis-a-vis the Holocaust. To do so would be sickening at best, and obscene at worst.
May 30th, 2008 at 5:03 pm
Mona, I’ve listened to that sermon excerpt. Hagee didn’t say that Hitler was “God’s glorious tool of righteousness”. He didn’t describes Hitler as glorious or righteous.
And Sam Stein didn’t say that Hagee described Hitler as glorious and righteous. That was you. You made that up.
May 30th, 2008 at 5:16 pm
Avram: Hagee didn’t say that Hitler was “God’s glorious tool of righteousness”. He didn’t describes Hitler as glorious or righteous.
And Sam Stein didn’t say that Hagee described Hitler as glorious and righteous. That was you. You made that up.
In a sense I did make it up, in that I was writing on a topic, and characterized Hagee’s views. (Hint: the fact that there were no quotation marks around the words is a dead give-away, among the literate.) Most writers “make things up” in that way. But the link to Hagee’s actual sermon — which I called attention to as being contained in Stein’s post — was and is there for everyone to make up their own mind.
In any event, your obsession with my characterization of Hagee’s views does not change how offensive they are to many, including many Jews, and that includes Sam Stein.