Ulysses S. Grant: Bad for the Jews

I must admit I was not aware of General Order 11, which General Ulysses Grant issued in 1862:

The Jews, as a class violating every regulation of trade established by the Treasury Department and also department orders, are hereby expelled from the department [the "Department of the Tennessee," an administrative district of the Union Army of occupation composed of Kentucky, Tennessee and Mississippi] within twenty-four hours from the receipt of this order.

He apparently did this to stem the black market in cotton, in which some Jewish traders were involved. Grant later rescinded the order and publicly repudiated it, allowing for a titanic influx of Jews back into Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi. (Okay, that never happened.) At least according to this Wikipedia entry, Grant managed to win a majority of the Jewish vote in 1868, although I'd really like to see the exit polls backing that up.

Young Jews and Zionism

Via Jonathan Bernstein, check out this interesting essay from Peter Beinart about the state of American Zionism.  From some reseach Frank Luntz is doing, it looks like college-aged American Jews just aren't buying it anymore:

Most of the students, in other words, were liberals, broadly defined. They had imbibed some of the defining values of American Jewish political culture: a belief in open debate, a skepticism about military force, a commitment to human rights. And in their innocence, they did not realize that they were supposed to shed those values when it came to Israel. The only kind of Zionism they found attractive was a Zionism that recognized Palestinians as deserving of dignity and capable of peace, and they were quite willing to condemn an Israeli government that did not share those beliefs. Luntz did not grasp the irony. The only kind of Zionism they found attractive was the kind that the American Jewish establishment has been working against for most of their lives.

Hamantash v. Latke

I participated in my first Latke-Hamantash Debate last night at the Buntport Theater in Denver.  I was one of four representatives for Team Hamantash, and I'm sorry to report that we lost on a very close audience vote, 43-41.  The competition was a ton of fun and very instructive.

Like most of my teammates, I played off the symbology of the triangular pastry.  My take was to liken it to the Holy Trinity of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy.  While Kirk was the captain, he couldn't function properly without consulting with the passionate McCoy or the logical Spock.  The show consistently reminded us of the importance of balance.  I also mentioned the Realpolitik view of the "Star Trek" universe in which their are no permanent friends or enemies, just constantly shifting alliances.  I contrasted the Trek universe with the Manichean "Star Wars" one in which evil is ugly and good is pretty and there is no nuance.  I noted that the latke bears a resemblance to the Death Star.

From there, I pointed out the American trinity of the legislative, executive, and judiciary branches, noting the Madisonian ideals of checks and balances.  I contrasted this with the unitary theory of the executive propounded by the Bush administration, suggesting that the latke essentially represented George W. Bush.  If you believe in the need for nuance and balance, I offered, there really is only one choice.

Well, despite these efforts and some truly heroic histrionics by my teammates, we still lost.  I'm not sure how much actual persuasion occurred among the crowd, but one thing that stood out to me was that the latke team used our advantages against us.  We were the more technically advanced team -- most of us used Power Point with a laser pointer.  Team Latke, however, played up their Average Joe appeal by noting that their food consists of potatoes and oil, common working class fare.  They portrayed the hamantash as an elite pastry and our team as out of touch with the masses.  They turned us into John Kerry.  It was most impressive.

I think for next year, our strategy should be to immediately go negative on the potato.  We have to remove the positive connotations.  We should also maybe rebrand the hamantash as "poppy pockets" or something.