Eitan Haber
צילום: שלום בר טל
2 stories from America
Eitan Haber writes about Miami Beach’s ‘Jewish decline’, Rahm Emanuel’s love for Israel
About 30 years ago, my cousin Leonard (Lenny) Haber served as the mayor of Miami Beach. I visited him back then, at a time when he headed a city most of whose residents (about 60% I believe) were Jewish.
I saw signs in Hebrew and in Yiddish, Jewish schools, and synagogues. Jews were dominant everywhere, in the city and in city hall.
I visited Miami Beach last week. One million Hispanics (and some say two million) have since moved into town and into its larger neighbor, Miami. The mayor is of Cuban descent. City hall is made up of Hispanics. Very little has been preserved from the “Jewish town” that was there in the past.
One million Hispanics eliminated the great Jewish branch. And if there are some readers who are seeing an analogy to what is happening here, in the Land of Israel, they are doing it on their own accord
Our new archenemy
In every generation, archenemies rise and threaten us, and then God saves us from them. In every generation, the Jews need to identify an archenemy. Once upon a time it was Haman, not to mention Hitler, Arafat, and Ahmadinejad.
We need an archenemy in order to blame everything on him, ranging from the destruction of the Second Temple to the Iranian nuclear bomb.
Yet the current archenemy is a kosher Jew. He is being blamed for everything, including the decline in the Sea of Galilee’s water level. His name is Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff and President Barack Obama’s right hand man (some would say left hand man.)
As one who is personally familiar with Emanuel and enjoyed cooperating with him during the Bill Clinton era, I would like to declare that we are dealing with a wonderful (even if somewhat edgy) Jew, who truly loves the State of Israel.
He may not like some of Israel’s current leaders too much, yet he hates them less than some Labor party members hate them. And he is not yet fully up-to-date on the news from Israel. He (still?) greatly admires Ehud Barak.
As the White House chief of staff, he has immense influence on the president; hence, more than other people, precisely because of his Jewishness and love for Israel, he needs to be careful with his words and actions.
But to go all the way to turning him into Haman’s deputy? Only the Jews can do that.
