Schmucks Against Obama

An Orchard Street boutique owner has started a campaign called “Jews Against Obama” – and is selling its T-shirts, hoodies, and tote bags for $250 each.

Doron Braunshtein, owner of the Apollo Braun boutique on Orchard Street, says $250 is not too much to pay for a simple white T-shirt with “Jews Against Obama” printed on it in block letters. “I believe that every item I make in my lifetime will be shown one day in the greatest museums and galleries in the city and will be sold for much more,” Braunshtein explains in his press release.

The word “chutzpah” is often misused by people who don’t have much knowledge of Yiddish, as Michael Wex writes in Born to Kvetch. (http://www.the-yiddish-world-of-michael-wex.com/) It does not mean “audacity,” Wex notes; it means sheer, shameless gall, like propositioning the widow at her husband’s funeral. The classic definition is someone who murders their parents and then begs for mercy because he’s an orphan.

I think we need to add a new definition. Making “Jews Against Obama” T-shirts, hoodies, and tote bags; selling these crudely printed shmattes for $250 each; and then sending out a press release proclaiming that these crudely designed shmattes will someday wind up next to the Greek sculptures in the Metropolitan Museum.

(http://www.apollobraun.com/store/store.cfm?category_id=18)

“Every item I make in my lifetime”? Does this putz frame his used toilet paper? I haven’t been down Orchard Street in a few months, but the last time I looked, there weren’t any storefront doors big enough to accommodate an ego of that magnitude.

There is a more serious political issue here. Braunshtein is apparently smart enough to know he can’t get away with claiming that Obama is a Muslim, so he says that most Jews–“at least the ones that are proud of their religion and practice it” – won’t vote for someone whose father was a Muslim and whose middle name is Hussein.

He says most Jews will vote for McCain. Well, the Republican hopeful has connections to preachers far more anti-Semitic than the Rev. Jeremiah Wright ever was. McCain chased after the support of Rev. John Hagee of “Christians United for Israel.”

CUFI is a “Christian Zionist” group. They believe that there should be no Palestinian state on the West Bank, because that would be dismembering the Biblical land of Israel – and it’s essential for Jews to regain full control over their ancient domains of “Judea and Samaria” (the West Bank) in order for Armageddon to come and Jesus to return.

Many right-wing Jews advocate allying with these “Christian Zionists,” as they are fanatically pro-Israel-they are more virulently opposed to Israel giving up one speck of land than are most Israelis and a good chunk of American Jews. “The plan of the anti-Christ is to divide Jerusalem,” Hagee preached in February. “If America puts pressure on Israel to divide Jerusalem, we are following the blueprint of the Prince of Darkness.” The catch, buried under arkloads of God-gave-our-Jewish-brothers-Israel rhetoric, is that they also believe that once Armageddon comes, all Jews who do not accept Jesus Christ as their personal Savior will be cast into the lake of fire for all eternity.

On the other hand, I’m disappointed by Obama’s recent statement that he wouldn’t negotiate with Hamas because it wants to destroy Israel. I presume that he feels the need to cover his ass and bend to right-wing political correctness after being burned by the teakettle-hocking outcry over his previous statements that he’d talk to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Hugo Chavez, and Kim Jong-Il without preconditions. But there’s a bit of reality at stake here. How can you make peace if you won’t talk to your enemies?