Oy vey: Zionist surfing website attacked by Jewish foundation, called “despicable, anti-Semitic!”

Don't nobody read anymore? Schmucks!

You’ll remember a story, yesterday, that warmed hearts and proved a little brotherhood don’t have to cost the earth.

A quick recap about a Jewish group helping California’s homeless:

In Encinitas, California, The Leichtag Foundation has taken a novel approach to dealing with California’s catastrophic homelessness problem by opening up parking lots for people sleeping in their cars to exist safely until they can get back in the game, under a roof that doesn’t have four wheels.

I wrote, as is my way, of “the righteousness of the Jewish people and their gorgeous little sovereign nation, forged in the fires of the Holocaust, endless war and the indifference and hostility of the rest of the world.”

Israel, Jews, the great Jewish diaspora, oh I love it all.

Read “Israel is the raddest surf trip on Earth!”, “What the Gudauskas Brothers got wrong about Israel”, “Let’s go schlepping, surfing gets into the 2021 Jewish Olympics!”, “The WSL double-downs on Israel!”, “Ozzie Wright sings King of the Jews!”, Movie: “The Hebrew Hammer!”.

Stories for days and we mustn’t forget a movie I made for Stab called “Tel Aviv Jumps” and which was subsequently re-edited after I left the company to remove archival footage of atrocities against the Jewish people – readers objected to the pro-Jewish sentiment of the film – and has since been removed from their website although you can watch here.

Who loves Jews more than me?

I look over at my bookshelf and I see Menachem Begin’s great memoir, The Revolt, about his militant Zionists, the Irgun, taking on the damned two-faced Brits in Palestine. Eighty bucks, not including delivery.

Ask me and I’ll sing Hava Naguila, word perfect. Notes a little off, but hey.

Therefore, some surprise, when the exec VP of the The Leichtag Foundation, the group I’d celebrated for their kindness and ingenuity, turned on your ol pal DR.

The link is here, but in a nutshell, Charlene Seidle, writes of being forwarded “this despicable, anti-semitic article.”

Comments below included,

“This article is hateful and I am deeply sorry that someone sent it to you. I understand that not everyone agrees, but there is no reason to be hateful.”

“I preserved the article. It’s blatantly antisemitic, and when called on it, authors tend to edit or delete articles like it.”

“Thank you for your brave and values-driven leadership.”

“The lack of respect for human dignity has been heart breaking.” 

“Despicable!! I am so sorry that there is so much hate and ignorance. We stand with you.”

To which I say, don’t nobody read?

Schmucks!

Oh wait. One reader did open story.

Beach Grit is a rough, juvenile environment intended to entertain a youthful irreverent audience. That it’s a “hit piece” or anti-Semitic is farcical but if that’s what you want it to be or need it to be to support your position, then that’s what it is. My mom flipped out when I brought MAD magazine home for the first time and banned it. She was horrified by it and some of my other choices in literature. Even at a young age I realized she saw what she wanted to see.