O Tempora, O Mores! (April, 2001)
American Renaissance, April 2001
Zimbabwe on the Brink
President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe is destroying the one remaining institution in the country that stands between him and absolute dictatorship: the courts. Chief Justice Anthony Gubbay, who is white, has been a thorn in his side for years with his quaint Caucasian views about the rule of law. He has led the Supreme Court’s opposition to the illegal takeover of white farms and against unconstitutional manipulations to keep Mr. Mugabe in power. The regime considers this the worst sort of racism, and one ruling party official says Mr. Gubbay was “infiltrated into Zimbabwe by British intelligence to overthrow the government.” If that’s the case, the government the British were trying to overthrow was Ian Smith’s white regime, since Mr. Gubbay arrived from Britain in 1958.
In February, Mr. Mugabe said he would appoint a new chief justice and that Mr. Gubbay had to resign on March 1. Justice Gubbay refused, opening the door to the interesting possibility there would be two chief justices. Mugabe supporters were furious, and one simply pushed his way into the justice’s chambers and told him to clear out. “The police let me in because I am big,” explained Joseph Chinotimba, who reportedly spent an hour haranguing Justice Gubbay in what cannot have been a pleasant interview. When reporters asked Mr. Chinotimba what he would do if the 69-year-old chief justice does not step aside, he said he and his friends would “declare war.”
Justice Gubbay had a chat with Mr. Mugabe’s justice minister and decided to go on pre-retirement leave immediately and step down 10 months early at the end of June. In Mr. Mugabe’s Zimbabwe this is considered a notable achievement since Mr. Gubbay wasn’t simply beaten up and ridden out of office on a rail. Mr. Mugabe intends to replace the remaining justices and lower-level judges, particularly the white ones.
A compliant judiciary will come in handy. Mr. Mugabe plans to put the opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai on trial in April for inciting violence at a campaign rally last summer. Mr. Mugabe is undaunted by the fact that his men were vastly more violent than Mr. Tsvangirai’s. Mr. Mugabe has also kicked two foreign journalists out of the country because they wrote displeasing dispatches. [Stella Mapenzauswa, Zimbabwe Settles Row With Defiant Judge, Reuters, March 2, 2001. Jon Jeter, The ‘Endgame’ in Zimbabwe? Washington Post, March 3, 2001, p. A1.]
The occupation of white farms continues with occasionally killings of whites. On March 4 gunmen pumped 15 rounds into Gloria Olds. It is a near certainty that they killed her because she was the mother of Martin Olds, who was one of the seven white farmers blacks killed in the run up to last summer’s election. Although many white farmers have abandoned their land, the 68-year-old Gloria Olds would not run away. [Chris Chinaka, White Woman Farmer Slain in Zimbabwe, Reuters, March 4, 2001.] Her son Martin, an experienced soldier and marksman, held out for two hours against a mass attack on his farm, wounding several assailants. Blacks managed to kill him only by setting his house on fire. When he came out they beat him to mush and then shot him.
In the meantime, European heads of state are treating Mr. Mugabe like royalty. Just about the time Mrs. Olds was being filled with bullets, Mr. Mugabe was a guest in the home of Guy Verhofstadt, the Belgian Prime Minister. Then on March 6, he had an hour-long meeting with French President Jacques Chirac, which he described as “very good, very friendly.”
The French and Belgians have been the most strident opponents of including Jörg Haider’s Freedom Party in the Austrian coalition, and for months snubbed Austrian officials on the grounds that Mr. Haider’s party was a threat to democracy. The Belgian Foreign Minister Louis Michel has even said the European Union should sanction Italy if the next general election-likely to be held in May-produces a coalition government that includes the anti-immigrant National Alliance and Northern League. This, too, would be an unacceptable threat to democracy. [Harry de Quetteville and Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, Dismay in Britain at Red Carpet for Mugabe, Telegraph (London), March 6, 2001. Matthew Green, Chirac Meets Zimbabwe’s Mugabe Amid Criticism, Reuters, March 6, 2001. Steve Pagani, Berlusconi Outraged by Belgian Comment, Reuters, Feb. 28, 2001.]
The British are reported to be annoyed with the continentals for fêting a man they consider a miscreant. One British citizen traveled to Belgium to try to make a “citizen’s arrest” of Robert Mugabe and was beaten up by body guards for his troubles. He vowed he would follow the president around Europe and attempt another arrest if he got the chance. Is this a stout-hearted Englishman protesting the ethnic cleansing of whites? No. Peter Tatchell is a stout-hearted pederast, incensed at Mr. Mugabe’s view of homosexuals, whom he calls “worse than dogs and pigs.” [UK Gay Activist Promises to Target Mugabe Again, Reuters, March 6, 2001.]
Pure Stupidity
The Civil Rights Project at Harvard University is dismayed to report that black children are 2.9 times more likely than whites to be classified as mentally retarded and to be put in special education classes. They are even more dismayed to find that black boys who attend suburban schools with large numbers of white students are more likely than ghetto-dwellers to be put in special-education classes. The suburban schools, they say, are practicing “systemic bias,” and all over the country black children are “labeled mentally retarded inappropriately.” [Jay Mathews, Study Finds Racial Bias in Special Ed, Washington Post, March 3, 2001, p. 1.]
What the study has found, of course, is not “bias.” It has found just one more consequence of racial differences in IQ. Most students in special education classes are “educable mentally retarded,” meaning they have IQs of 50 to 70. An estimated 2.2 percent of whites are in that range and 14.9 percent of blacks, which is a ratio of 6.6 rather than the 2.9 the study finds too high. Schools are already bending the standards to keep blacks out of those classes.
Why are blacks more likely to be in special education in the suburbs than in black schools? Some have speculated that it is because white schools have more money and can afford better special-education programs, but in fact many ghetto schools now spend more, per student, than suburban schools. It is more likely that because black schools are operating at such a low level to begin with, many of the “educable mentally retarded” are not so far behind their fellows as to require special attention. At schools with higher standards, the same blacks would be incapable of doing normal work and would be put in separate classes.
Who are the Bigots?
David Horowitz has been stirring up the campuses with a series of ads offered to college newspapers, entitled “Ten Reasons Why Reparations for Slavery is a Bad Idea — and Racist Too.” The arguments, which are posted on his web page for all to see, are sound and reasonably expressed. That, of course, is the problem. Seven of 18 colleges that received the ad refused to publish it and three that did have already apologized to readers. The March 1 issue of the student newspaper at U.C. Berkeley beat its breast, confessing on the front page that “the ad allowed the Daily Cal to become an inadvertent vehicle for bigotry.” The next day, the California Aggie of U.C. Davis apologized for a “grievous mistake,” which it called “an embarrassment not only for the newspaper, but the university community at large.”
The Wall Street Journal and even the Washington Post have criticized student closed-mindedness. Today, any argument that offends lefty academics, no matter how reasonable, is “bigotry,” and “a grievous mistake.” Mr. Horowitz reports, however, that the traffic on electronic bulletin boards at colleges is overwhelmingly in his favor. He now insists that colleges explain to him in writing why they will not take has ads, and publish a note to readers explaining they have censored him. [frontpagemag.com]
‘Related Intolerance’?
The United Nations is gearing up for another great hate fest directed at the West: the third World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, to be held in Durban, South Africa, Aug. 31 to Sept. 7. The two previous meetings were held in 1978 and 1983, the first to fight colonization (a little late-most colonies got independence in the early 1960s), and the second to bring down apartheid. Third-Worlders are particularly excited that the agenda will include concrete demands for reparations for the trans-Atlantic slave trade and compensation for colonization.
Mary Robinson, former president of Ireland and now the UN commissioner for human rights, generally supports these demands, especially compensation for slavery. “That trauma is still there,” she says, “and it’s deep, and it hasn’t been properly acknowledged.” The conference will also have a grand time criticizing American and European immigration restrictions.
There is some indication, though, that non-whites may not escape scot-free. Although the Indians have managed to spike it so far, there is a move to put the caste system on the agenda, and at a preparatory meeting in Santiago, Chile, black American groups succeeded in raising the subject of anti-black “racism” in Latin America. Amid the lip-smacking at the prospect of reparations for slavery, there have been a few mumbled acknowledgments that not only did Africans supply black slaves for the New World but slavery continues in Africa to this day. [Barbara Crosette, Global Look at Racism Hits Many Sore Points, New York Times, March 4, 2001.]
It remains to be seen whether the Chinese treatment of racial minorities in the eastern provinces and Tibet, or the constant tribal warfare in Africa will come up for discussion. If the conference were conducted honestly, it would report that group conflict is universal, and that ethnic harmony can be achieved only in the absence of ethnic differences.
Bitter Refuge
Herbert H. Lehman High School in the Bronx has about 4,000 students, almost all of them black or Hispanic, except for 200 Albanian students, many of whom are refugees from the fighting in the Balkans. They have arrived to find another fight on their hands. Last December racial tensions erupted into a full-scale brawl with dozens of students fighting it out, Albanians against blacks and Hispanics. Police had to stop the riot and arrested 13 pugilists. The year before, another brawl started when a member of the black Bloods gang spotted an Albanian wearing a red-and-black Albanian flag; the Bloods claim these colors for themselves.
Weeks after the latest riot, Albanian students said they were afraid to walk the halls alone. “They all hate us,” says 17-year-old Diana Gjoljaj of the blacks and Hispanics. “That’s why we hang together.” “They’re a bunch of racists, all of them,” says John, a 19-year-old Albanian who is afraid to give his last name. “The kids think because we’re white we’re not going to fight back. The principal’s with them because they’re on the football and basketball team.” Ylli Mujaj, a 15-year-old freshman, explains that Albanians refuse to be pushed around. “We stick together,” he says. “We give as good as we get.”
Evan Small, a black 18-year-old junior, says that when the fists begin to fly it is race that matters. He says he did not hesitate to join the riot as soon as it started: “If you see guys fighting you are going to jump in and protect your people.” [Dexter Filkins, In the Bronx, Ethnic Mix Breeds Tensions at School, New York Times, Feb. 12, 2001.]
‘Because of Their Skin’
Andress High School in El Paso, Texas, is 55 percent Hispanic, 27 percent white, and 16 percent black. The blacks and the Hispanics do not get along. On March 1, a fight in the morning resumed in the afternoon as a full-scale brawl involving 400 students. Police responded to a call around 12:20 p.m., but the situation only got worse. By 1:00 p.m., 100 officers had arrived and closed a road to the school as part of their attempt to restore order. A police helicopter circled overhead as police arrested 11 students for rioting. Terrel Tate, a 16-year-old white student, explained that “they [blacks and Hispanics] hate each other because of their skin.” [400 Texas Students Involved in Riot, AP, March 2, 2001.]
Watch Your Words
On February 9, Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante of California gave a Black History Month speech at the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists’ annual awards dinner. In what he later called an embarrassing slip of the tongue he used the word “nigger.” About a quarter of the audience of 400 walked out of the room. Mr. Bustamante claims he never uses that word but one of the blacks who attended says, “you don’t make a slip like that unless it is something you say normally.” [Lt. Governor Uses Racial Slur, AP, Feb. 13, 2001.]
How Much Worse?
Everyone knows crime is getting worse in South Africa but no one knows just how bad it is. Since last summer the country has refused to release crime statistics, claiming they are so poorly and inconsistently gathered they don’t make sense. The government may have a point. About a quarter of police officers cannot read or write, and those who can sometimes get it wrong. Pickpocketing on a bus is sometimes called a “cash in transit heist,” a category usually reserved for armored-car holdups. Police authorities also note that according to the statistics, some white suburbs are more crime-ridden than the shanty-towns. This is because whites report and record every crime while blacks-both victims and police-are more lackadaisical. [Philippe Bernes-Lasserre, Violence a Well-Kept Secret in South Africa, The Age (Melbourne, Australia), Feb. 16, 2001.]
Still, many people believed the police were refusing to publish the data simply because they are shockingly high, and amid the controversy a policeman made a few leaks to the papers. In Pretoria armed robbery is reportedly up by 50 per cent over the previous year and carjackings by almost 25 percent. [Crime Rise Rocks South Africa, The Age, Feb. 23, 2001.]
Sooooeeeee!
For years, Georgia offered state tax exemptions of up to $100,000 to companies that use minority suppliers. Until now, “minority” has meant at least 51-percent ownership by blacks, Asians or American Indians, and Hispanics want to put a foot in the trough, too. “In my opinion, it’s a discriminatory law,” says Sara Gonzalez of the Atlanta Hispanic Chamber of Commerce with no sense of irony, “and it’s simply not acceptable that Latinos aren’t included.” After much strenuous lobbying it appears that the law will be changed to include Miss Gonzalez’ fellow ethnics. [Carol Stavraka, Latino Business Owners Won’t Count Unless Georgia Law is Changed, DiversityInc.com, Feb. 14, 2001.]
Wales for the Welsh!
Simon Glyn is a councilor from north Wales for Plaid Cymru, the Welsh national party. He thinks too many English are moving into Wales, bringing what he calls their “foreign language,” and pushing out the Welsh. Despite much outcry and having been made to apologize, he is not exactly repentant. After a mandatory grovel he told the BBC: “Nobody should have to defend themselves for highlighting issues to do with the language of their community, or the economic situation within the community, or the fact that the community is unable to absorb inward migration.” In response to claims that his comments were too extreme, he replied, “I did choose pretty powerful language-but it’s a pretty powerful crisis,” adding, “I don’t regret it.” Mr. Glyn has received hundreds of messages of support and Sion Jobbins, Plaid’s prospective parliamentary candidate for Cardiff North, has attacked his own party leadership for not standing by Mr. Glyn. [BBC News, Feb. 21, 2001.]
Oldham Back in the News
Last month we reported that the British town of Oldham has had 572 racial incidents in the past year and that 60 percent of the victims were white. This represents a 100 percent increase in racial crime and intimidation over the previous period. In the latest incident, two 14-year-old white girls fled into a pub to escape from a gang of Asians (Pakistanis or Bangladeshis). The police arrived and arrested an Asian who claimed he was being singled out because of race. Later, other Asians used cell phones to call out their friends and a gang of 40 massed outside the pub. They then started throwing Molotov cocktails through the windows. Customers dived for cover and beat out the flames. Police came back and arrested three more Asians. Motive? Detective Sergeant Jim Slater of Chadderton Crime Management Unit, solemnly says: “I cannot comment on whether or not these incidents were racially motivated.” [Andrew Chapman, Asians Attack Whites, Daily Mail (London), Feb. 21, 2001.]
Carson Pirie Scott & Co. is a black-owned cosmetics company. As a special for Black History Month, it ran an ad in the Chicago Sun-Times offering a free calendar with pictures of famous blacks to anyone who bought $15.00 worth of Vantex Skin Bleaching Creme. [John Kass, Missing the Point Just in Time for Black History Month, Chicago Tribune, Feb. 22, 2001.]
Here They Come
Chicago immigration officials have granted political asylum to a 10-year-old autistic boy from Pakistan on the grounds that autism is so misunderstood there that he would be persecuted if he returned. Officials said the decision does not automatically open the door to all afflicted children. “His asylum was granted not on the basis of being disabled or autistic,” said Robert Esbrook, director of the Chicago Office of Asylum for the Immigration and Naturalization Service. “It’s the persecution his disability itself causes. He fits the classic definition of a refugee.” So far, it is only Umair Choudhry and not his mother who is a refugee, but Mr. Esbrook commended Mrs. Choudhry for her courage (courage?) and said she would not be separated from her children. Depending on the degree of affliction, long-term care for an autistic child can cost between $8,000 and $100,000 every year. Umair is now eligible for publicly-funded treatment. [Julie Deardorff, Mom Wins Asylum for Son With Autism, Chicago Tribune, Feb. 21, 2001.]
Enough is Enough
Whiteville High School in Whiteville, North Carolina, has 752 students, about evenly divided between blacks and whites. On Feb. 22 the last period of the day was a special program for Black History Month. About 200 white students showed up that day with notes from parents saying they had doctor’s appointments or other personal reasons for coming home early. Another 75 just went home without permission, leaving only about 50 whites in the audience. Associate principal Vicki Frink-Lawrence says the black students were “disappointed and hurt.” [White Students Skip School’s Black History Celebration, Charlotte News and Observer, Feb. 24, 2001.]
Glimmer of Truth
An otherwise unremarkable Los Angeles Times story about electricity shortages in California contained two interesting sentences: “Fundamentally, the rest of the West has outgrown its electrical system just as California has its own. And it has done so in very much the same way — by adding too many people without enough new power or conservation.” [Peter Gosselin, Most of West in the Same Power Jam as California, Los Angeles Times, Feb. 26, 2001.]
Muzzling the Europeans
Last month’s cover story noted that the Europeans have grown accustomed to government censorship, and a case last year in the European Court of Justice underlines the direction in which the continent is going. Bernard Connolly is a British economist who used to work for the European Commission, one of the governing bodies of the European Union (EU). The commission fired him for writing a book called The Rotten Heart of Europe, in which he criticized the European Monetary System and the introduction of the single European currency. Europeans have socialist employment laws that make it nearly impossible to fire anyone for anything short of a felony, and Mr. Connolly appealed his case to the EU’s Court of First Instance.
To his astonishment, it upheld his dismissal, reasoning that the EU has broad, undefined power to stifle political criticism to protect “the general interests of the Communities.” It turns out that what offended the bureaucrats was not Mr. Connolly’s economic arguments. In a carefully drawn up bill of particulars, they explained that his sin was to have written about such things as the “blind arrogance of Frenchmen such as Jacques Delors and his Commission acolytes,” the “opportunism” of the Italian government, and the European Commission’s man in London’s “ceaseless denigration” of his own country. Mr. Connolly also compared “British Euro-enthusiasts” to fellow-travelers who defended Stalin in the 1930s. This sort of talk greatly pained the European ruling class when The Rotten Heart of Europe was published in 1995.
Mr. Connolly appealed the lower court’s decision to the EU’s Supreme Court and got another shock. The court’s prosecutor Damaso Ruiz-Jarabo Colomer explicitly compared Mr. Connolly’s words to blasphemy, arguing that some forms of expression are so offensive to the “rights of others” that they must be suppressed — a view the court happily endorsed. Mr. Colomer cited as a precedent the British case of Wingrove v. United Kingdom, in which the court refused to permit the distribution of a pornographic movie called “Visions of Ecstasy” about the 16th-century Carmelite nun St. Teresa. In the movie St. Teresa has visions of lesbian couplings, as well as a necrophiliac fantasy about the crucified Christ, which culminates with her astride the body of Jesus who is laid on the ground still nailed to the cross. As heavy rock music plays in the background and she appears to reach orgasm, Christ begins to revive and holds hands with St. Teresa.
It is very unusual for the British to ban something because it offends Christians, but a court made an exception for “Visions of Ecstasy” because of the magnitude of the offense. It is ominous that the EU’s Supreme Court should use identical reasoning to justify taking action against its employee, but perhaps not very surprising for a continent that forbids truth about race and denial of Holocaust orthodoxy.
Decisions of the EU’s Supreme Court are final and cannot be appealed. Fortunately, they have a limited jurisdiction, and Mr. Connolly’s book can still be found in bookstores. However, like lefties everywhere, EU bureaucrats crave unlimited power, and European nations continue to strip themselves of what was once called national sovereignty. [Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, Now it’s Blasphemy to Mock Europe, Spectator (London), Nov. 18, 2000.]
Africans at Work
Sloan Financial Group is the largest black-owned money-management firm in America. It sells shares in the New African Opportunity Fund, which is supposed to invest in businesses in Africa. Sloan has filed suit against an employee who, along with his wife, managed the fund from offices in South Africa. Justin Hackett paid himself huge bonuses, charged kickbacks from African companies he recommended for inclusion in the fund, and is accused of stealing millions of dollars of fund money. The New African Opportunity Fund is private, and returns to investors are not publicly available. [Judith Burns, Sloan Financial Sues Ex-Employees on Looting Charges, Wall Street Journal, Feb. 27, 2001. p. A8.]
Meanwhile, Eyethu Mining Association, one of the first black-owned gold mining companies to be established after the end of apartheid, has been discovered to be selling gold off the books. It owes at least 500,000 rand in taxes and 70,000 rand in royalties, and the ministry of minerals and energy says the entire board of trustees will have to go, before the company gets another operating license. However, a spokesman for the ministry says there are no plans to press criminal charges. “We would still like to help these people,” he explains. [Unscrupulous Businessmen Destroy Black-owned Mining Company, Africa News Service, Feb. 26, 2001.]
Dissing the Queen
Richard Blackwood is a popular black comedian in Britain. Last October, on a television program, he complained that Queen Elizabeth looks bored on British banknotes and referred to her as a “a bitch.” Complaints poured in to the Broadcasting Standards Commission, which has now ruled that the term is not offensive when used by blacks. “Richard Blackwood was using the term as it is used in rap music, to mean ‘woman’, and not as a term of abuse,” explained the BBC. [Adam Sherwin, Blacks Can Call Queen Bitch, Says TV Ruling, Times (London), Feb. 28, 2001.]
Classic Urban Renewal
Vallejo is a city of 118,000 people an hour’s ferry ride north of San Francisco. It has worked hard to make itself attractive and is often included on “best places to live” lists. Recently the city installed a CD system to play classical music at a downtown bus stop that had become a hangout for black teenagers. Loitering complaints immediately dropped by half. A downtown businessman then donated a sound system for his street corner, which also plays classical music to clear out the riffraff. Mayor Joe Intintoli says other cities are calling to learn more about this method of urban renewal. “The arts can be a great technique for changing the environment of an area of town,” he says. “We can change the whole feel of this downtown.” The usual people say this is “racism.” [Gil José Duran, Vallejo Gets Bad Rap for Experiment in Classical Music, San Jose Mercury News, Feb. 27, 2001, p. 1.]
In mid-2000 there were 6.1 billion people on earth, a number that could reach 11 billion by 2050. The world’s population is growing by 77 million people or 1.2 percent every year. Just six countries, none of them white — India, China, Pakistan, Nigeria, Bangladesh and Indonesia — account for half the increase. Some countries are losing population. By 2050 Russia, Georgia and Ukraine could be 28 to 40 percent smaller. Italy and Hungary could lose a quarter of their populations, and Japan and Germany could be 14 percent smaller.
AIDS will not be a significant brake on population growth. Thirty-six percent of the people of Botswana are HIV positive, but that will not stop the population from growing by 37 percent. In Swaziland and Zimbabwe, more than 25 percent are carriers, but their populations are projected to grow by 148 percent and 86 percent respectively. For the nine most affected countries in Africa, where HIV prevalence is above 14 percent, the total population is likely to grow from 115 million to 196 million. [William Reilly, UN: World Population Could Reach 11 Billion by 2050, UPI, Feb. 28, 2001.]
Meanwhile, in the United States, the Census Bureau cheerfully reports that we have 60 percent more Hispanics than we did in 1990, and that there are now more Hispanics than blacks in America. [D’Vera Cohn and Darryl Fears, Hispanics Draw Even With Blacks in New Census, Washington Post, March 7, 2001, p. A1.]
Diversity Breeds Mistrust
A high-priced Harvard study has uncovered the obvious: People who live in diverse parts of the country trust each other less than do people in homogeneous areas. In a study of what he calls “civic engagement,” Robert Putnam found that people who live in places like Lewiston, Maine, or the white mid-West are more likely to trust co-workers, shop clerks, strangers, and the police then are people who live in Los Angeles, for example. Mr. Putnam, who wrote the popular book Bowling Alone, adjusted the results for population density, and found that diversity still undermines trust. [Peter Hong, Love They Neighbor? Not in L.A., Los Angeles Times, March 2, 2001.]
A group of 25 Jewish rabbis, scholars, and community leaders has been established to try to persuade more Jews to marry each other rather than gentiles. In a written statement after its initial meeting in February, it announced the following intention: “to work together to help restore the ideals of in-marriage, and to promote its importance to the future of the Jewish community, and to the preservation of Judaism and the Jewish people.”
Steve Bayme, national director of contemporary Jewish life for the American Jewish Committee, who organized the meeting, said the goal is no less than “to change the culture” around intermarriage in American Jewish life. Steven M. Cohen, who teaches at Hebrew University of Jerusalem and who spoke at the meeting, put it this way:
“To say that intermarriage is indeed an unfortunate and inevitable consequence of life as a minority in an open, democratic and pluralist society is not to say that we must endorse the acceptance of intermarriage. We cannot abandon one of the most critical and fundamental norms of Jewish life, one which is the linchpin of so much else that we hold dear and value about being Jewish.”
Rabbi Jeffrey Salkin of The Community Synagogue, in Port Washington, Long Island, also took part in the meeting and stressed the importance of articulating the message that “there’s only one reason for Jews to marry Jews: because we want Judaism to continue.” “There has to be a ‘what for’ in the message that we give people to marry Jews,” he added. “The ‘what for’ is that Judaism is worth struggling for.” [Debra Nussbaum Cohen, Coalition Formed to Fight Intermarriage, New York Jewish Week, March 3, 2001.]
