He's not our boy!

Ever so often the story is told about one prominent rabbi or another being asked to account for a particular religious Jew who cheats on his income taxes or commits some other misdeed, whereupon the rabbi responds "So, what's the question?" The point of which is that a truly religious Jew does not cheat on his or her income taxes or do the other misdeeds, and such is against Jewish law as well as secular law.

For me, the most recent of these vignettes came up in a discussion with a rabbi regarding the admitted misdeeds of superlobbyist (or, rather, former superlobbyist) Jack Abramoff.

In one way this is fine with me, but in another sense I am bothered by the tactic of summarily banishing that this transgressor or that from the "us" camp into the "them" camp when it is convenient to do so, in order to (A) spare the "us" camp lots of embarrassment; and (B) avoid having to account for the transgressor's misdeeds.

Sort of like the Mission Impossible refrain of "As always, should you, or any of your IM Force, be caught or killed, the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of the matter."

This is not unique to religious Jews (and indeed, we have a greater group cohesion factor than most if not all other social groups). In fact, the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Seattle Muslim community leaders are now using similar tactics in connection with Naveed Afzal Haq, the Seattle shooter.

What really gets my goat is CAIR's statement "We also urge local, state and national law enforcement authorities to step up security measures at synagogues, mosques and other religious institutions of both faiths." Would someone please give me a list of recent retaliatory attacks on mosques?

Actually, I do favor "stepped-up security measures" at mosques, but not the same way CAIR does. Maybe with more law enforcement personnel at the mosques, they can better detect the bombs and illegal weapons hidden in the mosques by the Muslim terrorists.

I propose a test. Using scientifically-sound sampling procedures, select 100 synagogues at random and 100 mosques at random. Send in the bomb squads, along with the camera crews, all having religiously-diverse personnel compositions. Compare the results of the searches and see what, if any, correlation is to be found between religious orientation and quantity of lethal devices.

You won't find any such materiel in my synagogue! The only potent device we have there is the Torah (which, come to think of it, is more powerful than any bomb or rocket the Muslim terrorists can ever construct).