A lot of people dislike Sarah Silverman for her potty mouth or Lenny Bruce-ian form of throwing light on prejudice. I happen to like her a lot, find her comedy whip-smart; and of course she’s many Jewish boys’ dream girl. Like all good cultural Jews, she’s also a liberal. In the following video she pulls no punches going after the stupid new “voter registration” laws being promulgated in the U.S. to politically dispossess those already socially dispossessed. WARNING: there’s some pretty foul language in the video, certainly NSFW and unsuitable for kids, but it’s damn funny.
The website she’s referring to at the end is this one.
But I’ve filed this post under “Jews behaving badly” because at The Jewish Press.com, Yaakov Rosenblatt, a self-righteous rabbi and purveyor of kosher meats, goes after her video in “An open letter to Sarah Silverman.” (The piece describes Rosenblatt as an Orthodox “youth rabbi in Dallas” who “‘tends the flock,’ literally and figuratively, as CEO of A.D. Rosenblatt Kosher Meats, LLC.”)
It’s an egregious and embarrassing piece, with Rosenblatt patting Silverman’s head with one hand while smacking her mouth with the other:
If I were to be gratuitous, I would say you mock what is imperfect because you know what perfect should look like and you seek the ultimate perfection.
But I won’t be so gratuitous. You are in show biz. I am in the rabbi biz. You entertain people. I serve people. I believe I have your number. You will soon turn 42 and your destiny, as you stated, will not include children. You blame it on your depression, saying you don’t want to pass it on to another generation.
I find that confusing, coming from someone as perceptive as you are in dissecting flawed arguments. Surely you appreciate being alive and surely, if the wonder of your womb were afflicted with your weaknesses and blessed with your strengths, it would be happy to be alive, too.
You said you wouldn’t get married until gay people can. Now they can. And you still haven’t married. I think, Sarah, that marriage and childrearing are not in the cards for you because you can’t focus on building life when you spend your days and nights tearing it down.
You have made a career making public that which is private, making crude that which is intimate, making sensual that which is spiritual. You have experienced what traditional Judaism taught long ago: when you make sex a public thing it loses its potency. When the whisper is replaced with a shout there is no magic to speak about. And, in my opinion, Sarah, that is why you have had trouble forging a permanent relationship – the most basic desire of the feminine soul.
And he ends with this bit of God-inspired advice:
You are driven. You are passionate. I pray that you channel your drive and direct your passion to something positive, something that will make you a better and more positive person, something that will allow you to touch eternity and truly impact the world forever. I pray that you pursue marriage and, if you are so blessed, raise children.
Great God! Did somebody say this in 2012? “The most basic desire of the feminine soul”? Well, I suspect that women do have genes that give them a desire to reproduce, just as do men—after all, the end of all natural selection is to pass on your DNA. But to criticize a woman for not fulfilling their genetic “destiny”—in Rosenblatt’s case the same as their “God-given destiny”—is insane. One of the great achievements of feminism was to dispel the notion that a woman must have children to be of any value.
Sarah’s father, Donald Silverman, comes to her defense in the comments, but the real action is from the other Jews, especially females, who rip Rosenblatt a new sphincter for his sexism.
h/t: Michael
What a horribly arrogant and intrusive series of comments. How dare he judge her.. anyone in fact.
God (Yahweh, Allah, Chthulu, I forget which has the hat for this bunch) told him it was OK. That’s why he dares.
So creepy. It is as if this Rabbi regards her as his possession, and therefore can tell her what to do. She on the other hand is hilarious, providing the best foil to her own vulgarity, her underlying sweetness.
I’m sure someone’s already suggested this in the comments below. I’m going to put it here before reading further, anyway.
Sounds to me like a certain rabbi’s got the hots for Sarah Silverman. I think he in fact does wish she were his possession.
Well I just watched the video and *I’ve* got the hots for Sarah Silverman. She’s magnificent. But I wouldn’t dare to patronise her.
And her mom is pretty cool too, at that.
As far as I’m concerned, ‘bad’ language is just words, it’s nothing compared to what these rethuglican creeps are actually trying to do.
Why do so many (in particular religious) people think the ability to breed is so sacred, when it’s a characteristic that we share with ALL life on the planet?
I don’t think that they do actually consider the ability to breed to be sacred. It seems more like they think that spouting sanctimonious crap about how sacred breeding is confers a moral superiority, and that is what they really want. To feel, and to be considered by others, morally superior.
But what they say does not usually jibe with what they do.
For another take on this, see Cristina Rad’s video ‘Childfree’ .
Oh by the way, Cristina’s language is as colourful as Sarah’s.
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I loved this video because I’m in Ohio, where voter surpression is rampant.
It’s a great tactic for Republicans though, because it’s always Republicans that try to limit voting like this. Even though there is no record of significant voter fraud, certainly none presented by people trying to make these changes, they still want to make it harder to vote under the guise of protecting us from fraud.
This lets them disenfranchise more people than there would ever be this supposed fraud from, people that wouldn’t vote for them.
Remember kids, if they make voting illegal, then only the criminals will vote.
If they were really against voter fraud, Katherine Harris would be in prison.
What a pity that the rabbi chose to attack Sarah personally, instead of commenting on the real subject of the video – ie the egregious disenfranchisement of certain sections of the American voting public.
Spot on!!!
This. If you are unable to refute the speaker’s argument, then attack the speaker. Ad hominem fallacy.
I thought she was pretty cute right up to when she mentioned the yellow discharge… 🙁
Seriously, do y’all think the Democrats should be able to keep winning election by getting the dead and non existent people to vote for them?
“Seriously,” in one sentence you manage to make three claims without any supporting evidence. How about providing some documentation of (1) voter fraud in recent elections that (2) has benefited the Democrats disproportionately, enough to (3) swing the outcome of those elections. Bonus points if the evidence demonstrates the insinuation that Democrats are actively coordinating the voter fraud.
Please provide documentation of this vast dead voter problem.
always lovely to see someone make baseless accusations. I see two people have already asked you for evidence. I suspect you cannot provide any and are just one more person who thinks they can lie and no one will call them on it? You are amusing in your thinking that you have some right to lie to everyone and that you think it’s worth it.
From Wikipedia:
“To lie is to deliver a false statement to another person which the speaking person knows is not the whole truth, intentionally.”
I am not telling untruths intentionally, therefore your post is worth zip.
“I am not telling untruths intentionally”
Really? They just rise, unbidden, from your keyboard?
I will refrain from identifying the alternate explanation out of respect for our host’s policy regarding how we talk about people certain kinds of limitations.
So you’re repeating other people’s claims without verifying them first?
You should have quit when we thought you were just a liar.
This is what right-wingers do!
“I heard on Faux News blah blah blah…”
That is two lies for miles-teg. This is just a troll and lies are all he has.
Aw, such a lovely excuse. “But but, since I keep myself ignorant you can’t blame me for what I choose to say and do”. Sorry, try again dear. I don’t buy that brand of bullshit. And still with no evidence of your lies. How nice to know that your claims are utterly baseless.
Thanks for enlightening me. I knew they were utterly insignificant, but I didn’t know we had officially decided that poor people were nonexistent. And here I thought Republicans offered no solutions to our problems besides tax cuts for rich people – but what neat idea! Poverty, solved.
“Seriously, do y’all think the Democrats should be able to keep winning election by getting the dead and non existent people to vote for them?”
C’mon. This is idiotic. It’s the best you can do when you lose an election? Complain that you lost because dead people voted for the other side?
I personally haven’t lost an election because dead people voted for the other side. I’m not a Republican either so “my” party hasn’t lost either, although I think even liberals concede that Kennedy won Illinois in 1960 due to wholesale vote rigging.
No, I have as much “evidence” as other people here have for some of their political claims, just saying that many Americans I know, not all Republicans, tell anecdotes of ballot rigging at various levels in the US.
I don’t have a lot of “evidence” that people who use Internet identity names with under-bar characters are incapable of eating in public without continuous flatulence. But many people, not all of them Democrats, tell such anecdotes. So I’m compelled to pass this fact on.
What mentally challenged liar Miles_Tag fails to tell us is that Kennedy would have won the election even if Nixon had carried Illinois.
Also, that was over 50 years ago.
“just saying that many Americans I know, not all Republicans, tell anecdotes of ballot rigging at various levels in the US.”
So because some idiots concoct a stupid reason for why their candidate lost an election, that’s the reason? Dead people voted?
May I ask you what interests you about this website? Because I’m thinking it isn’t the science.
I think everyone’s being a bit hard on Miles here. He possibly thought that “Tommy Boy” was a documentary.
Look, both parties engage in vote protection games (gerrymandering, e.g.), but the Republicans here upfront and clearly did their best to gain advantage by discouraging large sections of the population from voting, which is absurdly unacceptable, at least since the time most of us rose up and decided every last citizen (except felons) had full rights as citizens. If we had an intelligent electorate Repub’s would be scoured at the polls for that, but alas we have Miles of Tegs.
WTF is the rabbi all kvetchy about, she said nothing against religion, I don’t get what his problem is.
Sure she did! He even says outright:
“I wouldn’t be writing these words had your most recent video not been framed in biblical language. Its title* held deep significance to me, as I am sure was your intention…”
Plus the existence of a woman without children is just offensive and DEMANDS a derisive response to anything she might say. Duh!
/sarcasm
*The video is entitled “Let My People Vote 2012”
I think the subtext was “Why doesn’t she just shut up and breed?”
“…with me.”
*rolleyes*
Much respect to Sarah Silverman the world needs more like her. She is forthright funny and presents herself with alacrity. I was so impressed with her ‘No photo No voto’ video that I immediately wrote a ‘Ropey Rhyme for her: http://lyriclines-lettsy.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/when-dreams-become-nightmares.html The patronising diatribe from the Rabbi is extremely meaningless and the reply from Sarah’s Father is excellent. The Rabbi then tries it on in respect of that reply and falls flat on his pen.
Sarah’s father is the real story to this piece. The man is a freak’n pit bull.
“Hey Rabbi Idiot: Is your wife allowed to go to a minion or sit at the front if a bus or choose between abortion or birth. Take your false god and shove god up your judgmental ass. Check your wonderful bible and learn about your cruel god from a book you believe in literally.
http://www.godlessgeeks.com/LINKS/BibleViolence.htm”
Yeah, that was Sarah’s dad.
Except it’s “minyan”, not “minion”!
poor rabbis, priests and pastors. They have to insist that women only be property and incubators so they can guarantee their own employment in the future.
Silverman is great! And the best news is she’s coming to my home town later in December.
I love the smell of sardonic revenge early in the morning.
“There, there, my little one- you should stop all of this unfeminine kvetching about the state of the world (after all, that’s for us men to deal with), settle down with a nice Jewish boy, and assume your proper role as a Jewish brood mare.” I think the rabbi wants her, and probably wanks to her vids every night after sending his wife off to bed. Judaism desperately needs more cult members as its numbers are decreasing by 50,000 a year (due to poor “memes” concerning proselytizing)- interesting that so many people think that this dwindling bronze-age religion secretly rules the world!
Not a good time to be in the “rabbi biz”.
WTF? Voter “regulations”? Wasn’t this why revolutions swept the world in the Enlightenment?
Maybe it is time for an American revolution, at long last? You know, for a free world “American Style“™.
But the rest of this is pure fun:
# Sarah Silverman – ‘nuf said.
# “Yaakov Rosenblatt, a self-righteous rabbi and purveyor of kosher meats” – oops Rosenblatt, your snake oil trade of proscribed food is showing.
# “I serve people” [Rosenblatt] – is that kosher?
Well, except for Rosenblatt’s outrageous sexism at the end. :-/
The Jewish Press web site is currently “down for maintenance.” I was never able to open the link to the “good rabbi’s” open letter either via IExplorer or Firefox. I wonder whether the web site got overwhelmed with negative comments?
OMCC (ceiling cat) If you didn’t take a good long look at the gun owner photos at 2:16, go back and do yourself a favor. The one on the right first caught my eye but they are all actually amazing.
“and of course she’s many Jewish boys’ dream girl.”
not just Jewish boys.
What a vulgar Jewess!! I rather hope she doesn’t reproduce.
I find myself in one of those moments when I wonder if some corollary of Poe’s Law is at work.
This not good snark.
Your comment is as your blog is; “Nothing found”. Looks like you are at the height of your philosophizing.
Love the video. Thanks for posting.
Dear Rabbi, go copulate with yourself with that rectally impacted baton.
PS. your religion is an absurd embarrassment to humanity… I’m sorry but… go slice open all the children and oxen with swords? Murder all the sluts and keep the virgins for yourselves? Huff and puff and set bull meat on fire and slaughter others if they fail? To be fair, it takes an impressive array of cultish brainwashing techniques that must have taken centuries to develop to get anyone to buy that nonsense hook, lies, and stinker.
I want to see this Rabbi stand up to that last challenge (that’s 1 Kings 18 if you didn’t have all this BS forced down your throat like a Catholic priest’s ____ (and by ___ I mean communion wafer, duh) as a NON-consenting child, along with having a vital part of your penis cut off because of superstitious & pedophilic filth) and WHEN he fails, and we all KNOW he would fail, I wonder if he would accept the same consequences they (supposedly) forced on the priests of Baal? Naaa, he won’t even TRY because even they KNOW deep down that it is ALL bull.
Hello Dark Star:
Why don’t you tell us what you *really* think 😉
By the way, I agree on all points.
I’m just surprised that no one has yet mentioned the traditional Jewish prayer:
“Blessed are you, Hashem, King of the Universe, for not having made me a Gentile.”
“Blessed are you, Hashem, King of the Universe, for not having made me a slave.”
“Blessed are you, Hashem, King of the Universe, for not having made me a woman.”
Shows a certain lack of imagination, I think.
“Blessed are you, Hashem, King of the Universe, for not having made me a liver fluke”.
There, FIFY.
(Well, it was either that or dung beetle…)
“…and of course she’s many Jewish boys’ dream girl”
Seriously? In an article taking Rosenblatt to task for relegating a woman to the role of breeder, you effectively objectify Silverman as a “hottie”?
If this had been a male comedian you were talking about, would you have gratuitously added, “…and of course he’s many Jewish girls’ dream boy.”?
I recall some guy being pilloried for making a similar remark from the stage during some atheist or skeptic conference around the time of “elevatorgate”. How is this any better?
It wouldn’t surprise me if there were an introduction coming your way, along the lines of “Kettle of Fish, meet Empty Pot.”
… and just when we thought intolerant fundamentalism was the prerogative of rabbis and creationists…
Oy, vata putz!
Oh come on, Rabbi. You’re virutally screaming to “Sarah” in your longing voice: “I’M REPRESSED!” Well congrats, I’m sure you got her attention but she’s far too educated and wise to hook up with you.
You are in show biz. I am in the rabbi biz. You entertain people. I serve people.
Oh, so you do, Rabbi. That is what you get paid for, isn’t it? Is Ms. Silverman jumping up and down asking people to thank her for entertaining them? Um, no, because that’s what she gets paid to do.
But unlike you, she actually decided to step outside her profit zone and advocate for people who might be unrepresented and shut out of the election.
What have you done to make this world a better place? You used your position to make a lecherous, disrespectful statement to not just Silverman but all women.
From our side of the gender field: go stuff it where the sun don’t shine.
I hope you post that comment over at jewishpress.com where the Rabbi’s letter is published!
Will do.
How the Jewish Press sums it up to date:
http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/opinions/rosenblatt-v-silverman-a-culture-war/2012/10/17/
the end of all natural selection is to pass on your DNA
I thought the end of natural selection was to invent the condom.
“You said you wouldn’t get married until gay people can. Now they can. And you still haven’t married,” he says. Yeah, in 6 states. For the moment. And the federal government doesn’t recognize it when they do – no military pensions, no tax filing, hell you can’t even get your married name on your passport.
So maybe she’s holding out for the whole country?