Last week former Congresswoman Liz Cheney endorsed Kamala Harris for president, despite the fact that there are almost no policy issues on which the two agree. Said Cheney, “As a conservative, as someone who believes in and cares about the Constitution, I have thought deeply about this. Because of the danger that Donald Trump poses, not only am I not voting for Donald Trump, but I will be voting for Kamala Harris.” Two days later, her father Dick Cheney, who served as vice president under George W. Bush, also said he would be voting for Harris. He stated, “In our nation’s 248-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump...He can never be trusted with power again. As citizens, we each have a duty to put country above partisanship to defend our Constitution.” Dick Cheney was a strong supporter of Israel, and in 2008 he traveled to Israel, where he met Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Said Cheney at the time, “Our two countries have been more than just strong allies. We’ve been friends, special friends. Both our nations share the ideals of liberty, equality, human dignity and representative government.” In 2018, the former vice president sat for an interview with an Israeli anti-terrorism expert, Erran Morad, who Cheney did not realize was actually actor and writer Sacha Baron Cohen. Cohen’s satirical interview was taken as legitimate by Cheney, as evidenced by this back and forth–Morad: Why is it that people don’t give you enough credit for the many ways that you improved interrogation and humane torture? Cheney: Well, you’d have to ask them. I… We had a lot of very good people working for us. Morad: Torturers, or…? Cheney: Uh, interrogators. Morad: Sure, sure. Yeah. Cheney: We don’t call it torture.

What did Sacha Baron Cohen, as Erran Morad, have Dick Cheney autograph at the end of their interview?   

‍ Shimon Peres and Dick Cheney by David Bohrer is in the public domain via Wikimedia Commons 

A. A photograph of a bandaged Harry Whittington, the friend whom Cheney shot in the face on a duck hunting trip.

B. A “DO NOT ENTER” sign taken from the detention camp at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba.

C. An Uzi submachine gun.

D. A picture of Dick Cheney photoshopped into a Darth Vader costume.

E. A water bottle that Morad said he used to waterboard his wife when he was trying to find out if she was having an affair.

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An image taken in 2017 went viral again during the recent Summer Olympics in France. The picture is of basketball player Shaquille O’Neal and gymnast Simone Biles, highlighting the dramatic difference in height of the two athletes. Shaq is 7' 1" while Simone stands at 4' 8". Shaquille O’Neal has had many connections to the Jewish community. Early in his professional career he realized that he needed help managing the huge salary he was suddenly receiving. After interviewing a number of people who all made wild claims of how they would make him richer, he met financial advisor Lester Knispel, who O’Neal immediately sensed would be honest and fair with him. He went on to call Knispel “one little small beautiful Jewish man” and described him as “straightforward and very smart and not too slick.” Last week O’Neal recorded a video message for children at Camp Timberlane in Haliburton, Canada. The camp runs a program in conjunction with the Israeli organization OneFamily for “Israeli youth who have been directly affected by terror and war.” Shaq’s message said “Camp Timberlane! Hello! Shalom! This is Shaquille O’Neal. I just wanted to give you guys a shoutout and let you know I love you. To all the amazing children from the OneFamily, I know you came from far, far away. Hope you’re having a good time. We love you so very much. Thank you for coming. And we’ll talk to you soon.” And he ended the message with a string of Hebrew greetings, saying, “Alright, Shalom, Baruch Hashem, L’shana tova, Shabbat Shalom.” In 2021, Shaquille O’Neal posted on social media that his favorite Jewish holiday is which one?   

‍ Lipofsky Shaquille O'Neal by Steve Lipofsky Basketballphoto.com is licensed under CC BY 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons 

A. Passover, because when O’Neal was at LSU he went with a friend to the Hillel seder and has loved it ever since.

B. Lag B’omer, because Shaq is an amateur archer.

C. Shabbat, because growing up in Newark, New Jersey, he lived near a Jewish family who employed him as their shabbos goy, to turn lights, heat, and a/c on and off over the Sabbath, and they would always give him some challah on Friday night, which he loved.

D. Chanukkah, because the Los Angeles Lakers sponsored a Chanukkah Fans Night ever year, so Shaq learned about latkes and participated in a menorah lighting that took place on the basketball court before the game began.

E. Sukkot, because people live in shacks.

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Rabbi Michael Beals of Temple Beth El in Newark, Delaware, offered the benediction on the first night of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Joe Biden calls Beals “my rabbi,” having first met him at a shiva. The deceased woman, Sylvia Greenhouse, had donated $18 to Biden during his first run for the Senate in 1972, and she did the same in every subsequent Joe Biden campaign. Learning of her passing, Senator Biden came unannounced to the shiva in 2006, much to Rabbi Beals’s surprise. They became friends, and Rabbi Beals was a regular guest at the White House Chanukkah party when Biden was vice-president. Following President Biden’s poor performance in his debate against Donald Trump last June, Forward editor Jodi Rudoren spoke to Rabbi Beals, who offered a Jewish framework for discussing the issue of Biden’s age and its impact on his presidency and his future leadership. What did Rabbi Beals say regarding this issue?    

‍ Rabbi Michael Beals is in the public domain

A. Rabbi Beals referenced the Babylonian Talmud, B’rachot 8b which says, “Show respect to an old man who has forgotten  his learning through no fault of his own, for we have learned that the fragments of the old tablets were kept alongside the new tablets in the Ark of the Covenant.” Said Rabbi Beals, “This is an example of how we honor our elders and pass on their words, their values, their lessons, and their legacy, not by casting them out, but by holding them close even as the new leadership takes over, as from Moses to Joshua.”

B. Rabbi Beals quoted the great 20th century theologian Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, who said, “May I suggest that man’s potential for change and growth is much greater than we are willing to admit, and that old age be regarded not as the age of stagnation but as the age of opportunities for inner growth. The years of old age...are indeed formative years, rich in possibilities to unlearn the follies of a lifetime, to see through inbred self-deceptions, to deepen understanding and compassion, to widen the horizon of honesty, to refine the sense of fairness.” Rabbi Beals added, “It is not my place to tell people who they should vote for. But I do hope that people will find meaning in the words of our tradition and the messages of our scholars. The concept of unlearning the follies of our lifetimes in our later years is such a powerful message about the value of the elderly in our society, be they strangers or our own grandparents, be they our employers or our employees, and especially if, like President Biden, they are our leaders.”

C. Rabbi Beals quoted from the Midrash B’reishit Rabbah, 59:6, “Some people have years, and others have old age.” The Rabbi went on to say, “These nine simple words in so many ways reflect the values that we aspire to in Judaism, living a life of meaning and a life of wisdom. I often get the honor to work with young people, for example listening to the words of Torah offered by our bar and bat mitzvah students, and even they at the age of 13 reflect that they have years, while others in their 60’s, 70’s or ‘80s exhibit age but not value. I am honored to be friends with President Biden, a man who leads so consequentially because of his years.”

D. Rabbi Beals compared Joe Biden, near the end of his political journey at age 81 to Moses, who was 120 as he reached the end of his journey as leader of the Jews on the exodus from Egypt to the Promised Land. Said Rabbi Beals, “In our Jewish tradition, we don’t say we’re going to scrap the five Books of Moses because by the 120th year he’s not the man he was 40 years ago,” implying that though Biden may have lost some of his strength by this time, that should not negate his legitimacy as a leader.

E. Rabbi Beals compared Joe Biden, near the end of his political journey at age 81 to Moses, who was 120 as he reached the end of his journey as leader of the Jews on the exodus from Egypt to the Promised Land. Said Rabbi Beals, “We wish people to be 120. Does it mean we want them to be at 120 how they were at 80? No. We value the entire person.” He also noted that Moses, at 120, was “a little cranky,” implying that we should recognize that if we could put up with Moses at 120, we can surely deal with Biden at age 81.

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Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is seeking the presidency as an Independent candidate after initially filing to run as a Democrat. Kennedy has attracted much attention as the son of Bobby Kennedy and nephew of President John F. Kennedy. Among his political stands are strong support for the environment, reining in the military-industrial complex, ending chronic disease epidemics, and strengthening the rights of Native Americans and Black Americans. But Kennedy is also quite controversial, particularly because he is viewed as an “anti-vaxxer,” a charge he denies. Yet he said in a podcast that “There’s no vaccine that is safe and effective,” and he said in an interview with Fox’s Jesse Watters that “I do believe that autism comes from vaccines.” He is a supporter of Israel and has called Israel’s war against Hamas “a moral war,” though his running mate Nicole Shanahan disagrees with Kennedy on this issue, believing that “Israel should be showing more restraint.” What has Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in reference to Jews that has raised eyebrows in the Jewish community?    

‍ Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (53514290788) by Gage Skidmore is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

A. In an interview with Bret Baier on Fox News, Kennedy stated, “I’m not against all vaccines. Edward Jenner did a great thing creating the smallpox vaccine. And the Jewish guys, Salk and Sabin, they figured out polio. But now we just rush into these things, giving kids autism, and basically killing people.”

B. In speaking about COVID-19 at a New York press event, Kennedy said that the disease is “targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.”

C. Kennedy complained in an interview with Neil Cavuto on Fox News that he has had great difficulty scheduling interviews on other network news shows. “I’ve reached out to NBC, CBS, ABC, the New York Times, even the Wall Street Journal. I keep being put off. I’m not saying someone is controlling all the media, though it sure looks like it. I’m just saying that someone does not like me, and maybe his name is Soros.”

D. In discussing his brain worm with CNN’s Jake Tapper, who is Jewish, Kennedy said, “It must have come from pork. You know, trichinosis, which of course you Jewish guys never get.”

E. In Kennedy’s memoir, Lessons I Learned from My Family, he wrote about how he met his now wife, Cheryl Hines, co-star of Curb Your Enthusiasm, through show creator Larry David. Before things got too serious between the couple, Kennedy asked David for his blessing, but David said, “I may be the Yente who made the match, but I’m not Tevye, offering my blessing. You can ask for the Tsar’s blessing for all I care.” To which Kennedy replied, “Oh yeah, well in that case, may God bless and keep the Jews, including you, far away from us.”

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