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August 3, 2001/Av 14, 5761, Vol. 53, No.43
Chandra, Monica and us
JOSEPH AARON
Chicago Jewish News
Chandra Levy.
Monica Lewinsky.
Both are from California. Both of their fathers are oncologists.
Both, in their 20s, had an affair with a powerful politician, in his 50s, who was married.
Both are Jewish.
Uncomfortable with all this?
You should be. But for the right reasons.
This is one of those columns that make people unhappy, the kind with which almost everyone disagrees, gets angry with me, thinks I'm nuts, couldn't be more off track.
What, almost everyone says, does the fact that Chandra Levy, like Monica Lewinsky before her, happens to be Jewish, have to do with anything? Why is there anything here for Jews to think about, do something about?
Here's why. The fact is that the two most high-profile Washington interns ever are both young Jewish women. And while that may just be a coincidence, I think it conveys a powerful message for us.
For the fact is that to believe Monica and Chandra are unique and not at all reflective of Jewish life today is to be deluding ourselves in a dangerous way.
The fact is that both grew up in Jewish homes all too typical of American Jewry. Upper middle class, nice neighborhoods, fathers who are doctors. Families with enough clout to get their young daughters into prestigious internships, with enough money to put them up in nice apartments, provide for their material needs.
We want to believe, because it's easier, that Monica and Chandra say nothing about American Jewry. But the truth is they say a lot, for they are, in fact, many young American Jews; they are, in fact, examples of exactly what many American Jewish families have striven for and many have achieved.
Don't believe that? Well, if you remove the things that have brought them so much attention, the fact is that both Monica and Chandra would be looked at with pride by most American Jews, as exactly what most American Jewish parents wish their daughters were like.
That says so much about American Jewish life.
It says much that our best and brightest, the role models of what we want our kids to be, had so little in the way of Jewish values, so much wanted to be close to power, felt so little self-worth, so much were willing to do anything to get ahead.
I know, most of you think I'm making way too much out of this in terms of the Jewish community. Which is exactly the problem.
For this is not just about Monica and Chandra. It's about the fact that there are lots and lots of young Jewish women, and men, just like them.
The news recently brought us the story of Lizzie Grubman, a young Jewish woman, who's the talk of New York. Why? Well, seems Lizzie, a young Jewish woman with a wealthy father who helped her get a prestigious position, got mad one day at the valet at a fancy nightclub in the Hamptons and so she put her SUV into reverse and rammed into him and 15 others.
And it's not just about young American Jewish women. The news also brought word that Israeli President Moshe Katsav has commuted the sentence of Margalit Har-Shefi, the young Israeli woman who knew beforehand that Yigal Amir intended to murder Yitzhak Rabin, and did nothing to stop it.
And no, it's not just about young Jewish women. The news recently brought word of two young Israeli men who were arrested in New York in what New York police are calling the biggest Ecstasy drug bust in the city's history.
I frankly never thought I would see the day that a Jew would earn the title assassin, so much does Judaism value life, all life. Yigal Amir, with the help of Margalit, took care of that.
However, I frankly never thought I would see the day that Jews would earn another title: vigilante.
But so it is. Right now, at this minute, there are Jews who are vigilantes, taking it into their own hands to murder Palestinians.
You heard right. A group of Jewish men calling themselves The Committee for Security on the Roads, last week murdered three Palestinians, including a baby, in a drive-by shooting.
Others on the committee have gone on rampages wrecking cars, burning olive groves, beating up Arabs.
Vigilantes. Jewish vigilantes.
Nothing in Halachah allows, no hardship or government restraint permits, murdering Arabs. And yet that is what these Jewish vigilantes have done and plan to keep doing. In the name of Judaism.
Tranquilize yourself, fool yourself into believing they are just a fringe element. Fact is there are too many like them and many more who quietly support and agree with them. Many. And the fact is that those vigilantes are part of a continuum that also includes Margalit and the Ecstasy boys and Monica and Chandra.
All are the products of an era in which Jewish values play less and less of a role in Jewish life, in which power and money and might are valued above all else.
Which is why, when all others are focusing on the salacious aspects of the Chandra Levy story, I think all Jews should be taking a long, hard look at the Jewish aspects of it. For there is much for us to see in it and learn from it.
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