Jewish leaders in the US filed a complaint with Fox News over popular host Glenn Beck’s harsh rhetoric, which includes colorful references to the Nazi era.
Beck, who maintains pro-Israel views, has slammed social justice organization and claimed they are dangerously reminiscent of communism, socialism, and fascism. He has been a vocal critic of president Obama, often invoking Nazi images to highlight his views.
The popular TV personality has targeted Jewish groups, among other things accusing Jewish Funds for Justice President and CEO Simon Greer of holding a Nazi-like worldview.
Later, responding to a harsh Washington post op-ed against him by Greer, Beck slammed Greer’s attitude, arguing that “This leads to death camps.”
Greer’s column for the Washington Post’s “On Faith” section unsurprisingly ignited the debate once again. Political philosophy aside, Greer’s lead sentence may have been enough to set the host off: “Mr. Beck, you are a con man and America is not buying it.”
In the piece, Greer argued that “government is one way by which we care for our neighbors, and my tradition tells me to care for my neighbor as I care for myself.”
“Government makes our country function,” Greer wrote. “To put God first is to put humankind first, and to put humankind first is to put the common good first.”
Beck disagreed.
“This leads to death camps,” Beck said on May 28. “A Jew, of all people, should know that. This is exactly the kind of talk that led to the death camps in Germany — put humankind and the common good first.”
Jewish leaders, believing Beck went too far, filed a complaint with Fox News’ chief executive. The letter led to a meeting with top network executives in an effort to calm the tensions. Meanwhile, Beck sent Greer a letter where he did not offer an apology, but said he took the concerns expressed by about him very seriously.
(Source: Ynet)
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9 Responses
Simon Greer is a liberal who is trying to seduce his fellow Jews to equate liberalism with Hashkofas Hatorah. The government can’t replicate what private tzedakah does.
However, Glenn Beck doesn’t know his history. What lead to the Nazi death camps was anti-semitism, period.
Becks macular dystrophy is starting to get to his brain
Who are these JEWISH LEADERS? I am sure they are just a bunch of self hating liberals!
Found on Wikipedia…
“Rabbi JILL Jacobs, Rabbi-in-Residence at JFSJ (Greer’s organization), was included in The Forward’s Forward 50 in 2006, for “almost single-handedly forc[ing] the movement to refocus on one of the oldest issues on the social agenda: workers’ rights.”
Ok, Now I think I know where this Greer guy is coming from, and I can remain a Beck fan.
Beck is right and he should say it 100 more times, Greer would be a gestapo if he lived in germany during the war self hating jew that he is along with all the other liberal jews
Many of you delegitimize concerns some of us have raised about the frum love affair the American political right. Historically the right has long had antisemitic threads throughout its ideology – threads that maybe are only shallowly buried with the greater threat today of Islamic extremism. I suggest that this story warrants at least a respectful analysis from that perspective.
Beck is correct and Greer is wrong. That is the whole story.
Aryeh Zelasko
Beit Shemesh
Why let the ramblings of a non-event trouble you. As long as you know what someone is saying, you can defend yourself. The time to start worrying is when you don’t know what they are saying. If Glen Beck needles you by getting under your skin and on your nerves, then he has accomplished his goal. Why participate in that kind of behavior?
Reform Judaism has always substituted “Social Justice” for real, authentic Torah-based Judaism. Basically, they have adopted self-worship as their faith.
“social Justice” sounds great, until you get down to the details. Then, you realize how really dangerous and tyrannical it is. It denies private property rights, whic means that it condones stealing that which rghtfully belongs to your neighbor.
That’s what Communism and Socialism are really about–legalized theft and jealousy.
Once you start “Sharing the Wealth,” you proceed to eliminating those who are using too much of the shared wealth–namely the old and the weak–it’s a natural progession.
In the beehive society, there is no room for “Useless Eaters,” as Hitler termed these people.
His solution was to exterminate them in gas chambers.
Later, this “solution” was also used for those other “undersireables–the Jews.
That’s what Glenn Beck was talking about!