It’s the Talmud, Stupid! Poor, Deluded John Kasich

Here we see John Kasich on his campaign swing through Brooklyn, stopping off in a Jewish bookstore to make nice-nice with the locals. Trying drum up votes, Kasich expounds at length upon the story of Joseph, presumably seeking to electrify his listeners with his vast knowledge of the Old Testament.

This was on the same campaign swing through Brooklyn in which the presidential candidate presumed to inform a Jewish audience outside a matzah bakery about the significance of the Passover holiday. “It’s a wonderful, wonderful holiday for our friends in the Jewish community–the Passover,” Kasich said. He added: “The great link between the blood that was put above the lamp posts–the blood of the lamb–as Jesus Christ is known as the lamb of God.” The comment, as you may imagine, got picked up by a number of comedians, among them Stephen Colbert.

But let’s return our attention to the video above. Wandering through the bookstore, Kasich runs across a group of yeshiva students decked out garishly in Hasidic attire. Pausing to greet them, he asks what they do, learning in the process that they are students, and then proceeds to inquire what they are studying.

“Talmud,” says one.

“Okay, but what are you learning right now?” asks Kasich.

“Um….”

The students, some of them grinning, seem a little reluctant to give him an answer.

Poor John Kasich. Apparently he is unaware that the Talmud depicts Jesus Christ boiling in excrement.

He obviously also believes he is having a conversation with a group of open-minded, tolerant folk who respect people of all religious faiths. Presumably he’s unaware of Talmudic teachings that it’s okay for Jews to steal from Gentiles, that Gentiles are subhuman, or that Jews are allowed to have sex with three-year-old girls (or specifically three years “and a day.”)

And I am assuming maybe he’s equally unaware of what a number of famous Jews have had to say about the Talmud…

The Talmud is to this day the circulating heart’s blood of the Jewish religion. Whatever laws, customs or ceremonies we observe — whether we are Orthodox, Conservative, Reform or merely spasmodic sentimentalists — we follow the Talmud. It is our common law.

— Herman Wouk

Meanwhile, Kasich takes pains to try and ensure that Joseph, the Old Testament character who wore the “coat of many colors,” is given proper respect by his Jewish “friends” in Brooklyn.

Poor, deluded John Kasich.

Richard Edmondson

Richard Edmondson is an author, novelist, poet, and journalist whose writings often focus on Middle East issues, the Zionist lobby, and religion. His latest novel is The Memoirs of Saint John: When the Sandstone Crumbles, a story about an archaeological team doing a dig in Syria and set amidst the current conflict in the country.

In 2014 Richard attended an International Conference on Combating Terrorism and Religious Extremism, held in Damascus. The book is part two in the Memoirs of Saint John series.

Two other books by Richard are Rising Up: Class Warfare in America from the Streets to the Airwaves, relating his experiences founding and operating an unlicensed or “pirate” FM radio station in San Francisco in the 1990s, as well as a volume of poetry entitled American Bus Stop: Essay and Poems on Hope and Homelessness.

Richard is cognizant of the words of the early Christian writer Tertullian, who in the second century-basically prognosticating the fall of the Roman Empire-wrote: “We have made merry amid the ludicrous cruelties of the noonday exhibition.”

richardedmondson.net