By Hal Brown, MSW, retired after 40 years of practicing psychotherapy. Formerly director of a mental health center and in psychoanalytically oriented private practice. Currently internationally known expert on the inner workings of the mind of Donald Trump (click here).
The blogger in the title is your's truly who happens to be Jewish and is from New York. I grew up in a suburb of New York City, lived on W. 87th Street in Manhattan for two years during which time I worked at Yeshiva University in one of their graduate school libraries.
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| Hal Brown is on the right. |
I really like Dan Goldman, the Jewish New Yorker who, before he was elected as a member of the House of Representatives as a Democrat representing New York's 10th congressional district which includes Wall Street was known to me as a legal analyst who often appeared on MSNBC.
Now, instead of being on MSNBC as an analyst he's being interviewed about the Jim Jordan "get Bragg circus" in New York where Goldman and a witness had a heated exchange:
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About Dan Goldman, from Wikipedia:
He previously served as lead majority counsel in the first impeachment inquiry against Donald Trump and lead counsel to House Managers in Trump's subsequent impeachment trial. Goldman is among the wealthiest members of Congress, with an estimated personal net worth of up to $253 million according to financial disclosure forms.
A close friend of mine who is also Jewish have used the term "bad Jew" lamenting news about Americans who turn out to be Jewish and make the news for doing something we consider bad. We don't use the term for Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu since, while we are appalled at his fascistic behavior, he's not an American who surprises us with bad behavior.
A well-known example of someone we'd consider to be a bad Jew was the late Sheldon Adelson who donated huge sums to Republicans.
He and his wife Miriam Adelson were Donald Trump's largest donors, providing the largest donation to Trump's 2016 campaign, his presidential inauguration, his defense fund against the Mueller investigation into Russian interference, and the 2020 campaign. He was also a major backer of Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Now I look at a Raw Story+ exclusive (shown in illustration above) by the website's editor-in-chief Dave Levinthal (bio). It shouldn't be relevant whether the author is Jewish. He has a Jewish last name and is from Buffalo, N.Y. and graduated from Syracuse University, but if he is Jewish I wouldn't be surprised if he feels the same way I do.
This is the featured story on Raw Story+
Excerpts:
- As a congressional candidate last year, Rep. Daniel Goldman (D-NY) pledged to form a “blind trust” for his massive stock portfolio — a move designed to shield himself from financial conflicts of interest by giving an independent body control of the administration of his private business dealings.
- Since early January, Goldman has bought or sold shares of individual stocks more than 250 times, far outpacing many other congressional super-traders, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), according to a Raw Story analysis of congressional financial disclosures.
- Some of the congressman’s stock trades involve politically noteworthy or sensitive corporations — defense contractors, tobacco companies, banking firms — at a time when some Democrats and Republicans alike are agitating for an outright ban on lawmakers trading individual stocks in the name of curbing conflicts of interest.
- But questions remain. Goldman’s office declined to make the congressman available for an interview, and Goldman’s staff declined to provide specific details about his personal finances, including who manages and executes stock trades on the congressman’s behalf.
I am particularly disturbed by Goldman's refusal to allow himself to be interviewed on this subject. I am also bothered by this:
Goldman did, however, catch heat earlier this year for another kind of violation: the New York Post reported that the congressman’s two luxury vehicles had amassed dozens of vehicle citations, mostly for parking infractions. At the time of publication, the congressman had reportedly paid almost all of the associated fines.
Whether he paid the parking tickets or not, the suggestion that he thinks he is so privileged he can avoid New York City parking law while "ordinary" people can't is troublesome to me.
Liberal American Jews like me and my friend, and perhaps Dave Levinthal, have a self-identity that has little if anything to do with being observant. Many of us consider ourselves to be secular Jews even if, like me, the last time I set foot in a synagogue was when I went to a bar mitzvah of a friend's son decades ago.
We "feel" Jewish and oftentimes people recognize our Jewishness. Anyone from New York, Jewish or not, would likely know I was Jewish because of my appearance. You can compare my appearance, it's okay to focus on the Jewish nose, with Goldman and I sharing this characteristic which has it's own Wikipedia entry. Unlike Dave Levinthal, I look Jewish.
Dan Goldman may have neglected to cross all the financial t's and dot all the i's because he was attending to dealing with matters of national importance. I really doubt, and I want to believe that one of the richest members of Congress wanted to hide the fact that he was a "super-trader" like Marjorie Taylor Greene. He's smart enough to have known that this is the kind of story one wants to get ahead of and not give the appearance of having something to hide.
I doubt he will ever read this (although I will put a link to my blog on the Raw Story+ article). If he does, listen-up fellow New York Jew, please respond to the request from Raw Story to comment.
Update: I don't know what to make of these replies to my comment:
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2 comments:
Please comment.
In my parents' days, using "Jews" as a negative label was almost reflexive.
But for a national politico to still do this is beyond my understanding. If anything, it has become worse over the last 2 decades.
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