Posted on 10/16/2018 4:58:56 AM PDT by Kaslin
I moved to California from New York City in 1976. The founder of what was then America's largest Jewish retreat center, the Brandeis Institute (not affiliated with the university), Dr. Shlomo Bardin, asked me to work as his assistant. He was 75 years-old; I was 25. One weekend the next year, he announced to the membership he wanted me to succeed him. To everyone's shock, he died that very week. It was then renamed the Brandeis-Bardin Institute.
The institute was located in Simi Valley, California, then more a small town than even a small city. It had all of two restaurants. I lived there for three years and joined the Simi Valley Rotary Club.
To the best of my memory, I was the only Jew in that Rotary chapter. What struck me was that my being a Jew meant essentially nothing to the other members. No one cared. Not even a little.
If you are an American, my reaction makes little sense. You are wondering why it struck me that my being a Jew meant nothing to the entire membership.
The reason was I knew Jewish history. Prior to moving to California, I taught Jewish history at Brooklyn College. Nowhere in the Jews' 3,000 years as a people living in non-Jewish societies did being a Jew ever mean nothing to the non-Jews among whom they lived.
Even in 1976.
The Jews of France were known as Jews, as were the Jews of England, Brazil and everywhere else. If I were in a Rotary Club in a small French city, especially if I were the only Jew in the club, the other members would know me as "Denis le Juif," Dennis the Jew. That did not mean the other members were anti-Semites, only that in Europe, as everywhere else, if you weren't a member of the majority group, you were known as a person with that other identity.
If you were to mention to any of the members of the Simi Valley Rotary Club in 1976 that this guy Prager was a Jew, their reaction would likely have been "So what?"
And it wasn't as if my identity was hidden. On the contrary, the reason I was admitted to the club was that I was the head of something -- a Jewish educational center. And for the record, that would have been the Rotarians' reaction if I were an Arab, a Latino or a black.
Only in America.
To this day, a German whose grandparents immigrated to Germany from Turkey is likely to be regarded as a Turk, even if he speaks no Turkish and speaks German exactly as other Germans do. And this monumental difference goes in both directions. This third-generation Turk in Germany is not likely to regard himself as a German.
But a Turk who immigrates to America is regarded as American the moment he becomes an American citizen (if not sooner) -- even if he has a Turkish name and speaks halting, accented English. If he wants to identify as American, he's an American.
Only in America.
Only in America have people of every background come to be regarded as fully members of the majority group. The parents of the present U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, are Sikhs who immigrated to America from India. Few Americans know this, and those who know don't care. As far as most of us are concerned, Nikki Haley might as well be a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution.
Of course, Americans did not always live up to American ideals -- their attitudes toward black Americans being the most obvious example. But America evolved into the least racist and least xenophobic society in human history -- the society that most successfully assimilates others as full members.
Today, however, there are two threats to this exceptional American achievement.
One threat comes from the left, which does not want minorities or immigrants to assimilate but to retain their minority or immigrant identity as their primary identity. If a black American says, "I am an American who happens to be black," he is vilified by the black and white left as a "traitor to his race" and an "Uncle Tom." The left regards efforts to assimilate all Americans into one American identity -- such as declaring (not even legislating) English as the official language of the United States -- as a form of "white supremacy."
The other threat comes from those immigrants who do not come to America to become American but to use America for its financial, medical and educational benefits while remaining attached to their own culture.
When politicians and commentators on the left analyze the 2016 presidential election, they invariably ascribe the Trump vote to lower-class angry whites. But this upper-middle-class Jew voted for President Trump (and would have voted for any Republican) not out of anger but out of love -- for the exceptional country he fell in love with at the Simi Valley Rotary in 1976.
Excellent and so very true. I see it played out daily at the gas station where I get coffee many mornings. White’s hold the door open for blacks, black’s say thank you and good morning. Blacks hold the door for whites and whites say thank you and good morning.
same for Hispanics, men, women, Chinese and whoever else happens to walk by.
The front door at the Wawa gas station is the great equalizer and microcosm of America.
We will, because we must MAGA.
HOORAY Prager!
“The front door at the Wawa gas station is the great equalizer and microcosm of America.”
____________________________________________
Please don’t laugh, cyclotic... My beloved and I went to our local Denny’s and that was what I told my beloved! I was watching people come in and go out, and was so amazed at the wonderfully different faces!
Young families, oldsters, singles, smiling, too-early-in-the-morning faces, where-is-the-coffee-please faces and even babies sprinkled in here and there. My beloved was a bit cranky because he was having to wait for his breakfast, so he was in the where’s-my-food category. LOL
Point is, the article is right. Despite so many Lefties hating us, and despite so many illegals who only want benefits (as well as many legals with that mindset), this is a GREAT country.
Keep on, keeping on....MAGA.... AND VOTE REPUBLICAN.
My friends and I discuss the morning WAWA thing frequently, how friendly and respectful it is.
And how WAWA must just print money in the morning. It’s not unusual to see 30-40 people in the store at any given time.
Cops, contractors, engineers, sales reps, moms with kids. Everything and everybody.
This month is their any size coffee for $1.00 promotion too.
This post and thread is nice, entertaining and uplifting. I am an American Indian (Choctaw) and past-president of my rural town’s Rotary Club. I run many mornings with 4-5 obsessive soccer moms and my Black friend who is married to a white woman. They have three great teenage kids. This country can be great again if liberals will just get out of the way.
One of my favorite books is Dinesh D’Souza’s “What’s So Great About America”, and he covers this in detail.
What it boils down to is, you can come to America, get your citizenship, and...to everyone else already in America...you can BE an American.
You can’t go to Japan, get your citizenship and “be Japanese”. That would be ludicrous to other Japanese. You can get French citizenship, but...you won’t be “French”.
And so on.
But here, you can be an American, because it is an idea, not what is in your blood.
A current problem is, we SHOULD be a multi-ethnic country with a common culture, and that is what we strove for in the past when immigrants “assimilated”, the “Melting Pot”.
The Left wants a multi-cultural country where common culture is less important than tribal culture, and that is s corrosive poison.
Ive been listening to Prager for over 20 years. Trump should have him as one of his top advisors.
And realistically, who cares what their heritage or skin color is?
Great article by Prager.
I first realized America was exceptional when I’d see US military aircraft in the sky, and ask my USAAC vet dad, “Do the German and Jap planes still fly?” And he said, “No.”
-—And realistically, who cares what their heritage or skin color is?-—
Exactly!
That evening I thought: "Only in America". A Catholic priest extolling the virtues of his Jewish parishioner who loves trusting his kids to an Indian Sikh doctor.
Good old Dennis, still selling the America Is A Proposition Nation stuff, with the theory that vast numbers from the 3rd world aren’t altering the culture of the United States.
It’s amazing because he’s lived in SoCal since 1976, and you’d have to be blind not to have seen the massive change in California. Well he’s not blind, but he does travel in a bubble, from his Westside LA digs to wherever he is speaking. And like many former liberals, he’s capable of deluding himself. A nice guy, but in some ways still the clueless kid from Brooklyn wearing blinders.
Dennis was a big fan of Dubya’s amnesty attempt. In fact I’ve long suspected that both Dennis and Michael Medved were unofficial advisers to Dubya. Dennis often said that his idea of a ‘solution’ to California’s massive illegal alien problem was to massively increase the number of legal immigrants that we allow in each year. Yeah, because it’s been such a good idea to drive Californians out of this state and replace them with the imports who have voted in current crew of revolutionary socialists.
But maybe there is a glimmer of reality intruding on Dennis’ Panglossian immigration fantasy; this is something entirely new in Dennis world:
“The other threat comes from those immigrants who do not come to America to become American but to use America for its financial, medical and educational benefits while remaining attached to their own culture. “
“Ive been listening to Prager for over 20 years. Trump should have him as one of his top advisors.”
Sure, if Trump wants to become Dubya version 2.0
Only liberals use race, gender, sickness, morals, and a few hundred ways being invented daily, to separate us from each other. Diversity establishes boundaries, and forces acceptance. Our country was not founded under that idea. And until the people realize that working together willingly is for the good of all and not based upon forced acceptance of different identities to get there, we will have tools for them to use. And they don’t care who they harm in their use.
rwood
There’ a WaWa about two miles from my home, in a middle class neighborhood in Scott Taylor’s Congressional district (VA-02). The store is the new melting pot; I’ve been in there at all hours of the day (and night) and it’s just as you describe: everyone from all walks of life. The store near my home also has a strong military presence, since there are five bases within 15 miles of that location.
As many know, WaWa is a privately traded company; the only individuals allowed to own stock are the Wood family (which founded the company over 200 years ago) and employees. The latest valuation of WaWa stock put the price per share at just over $7,000—eat your heart out Google.
Of course, if you’re an hourly associate, it takes a while to purchase a single share (even if the company offers a discount), and you’re required to sell your shares the day you leave the company, through resignation, retirement or termination. There’s currently a lawsuit in the courts, filed by a former employee, who claims the company promised ex-workers they could retain their stock after leaving WaWa.
My number one best softball buddy is black. If I jump teams, he comes with me. If I buy a new bat, he wants one too......The only time we talk race is when we joke about another black player who was on our team 3 years ago and who is now in prison..........LOL!
He's a great man, a retired skilled tradesman from Chrysler and raised his kids well........
He may be a democrat, I don't know. We never talk politics.......we let the other guys do that.
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