Opinion: An American Jew’s answer to Seth Rogen

He tells us that his Canadian parents are “radical Jewish socialists.” No kidding. 

By Jack Engelhard, Arutz7

If you never heard of Seth Rogen, just as well. He made a splash in some off-beat movies, and became famous as an actor.

Turns out he is more than an actor. Or less than an actor. But more of a comedian, and not so funny.

In a normal world we would not care either way. So why do we care?

Nowadays we have to listen to idiots because they run our world, and he is one of them. He is also Jewish, which proves it takes all kinds.

Most of us (I like to think) follow Moses, but some, apparently, still prefer Korach.

He tells us that his Canadian parents are “radical Jewish socialists.” No kidding.

So this apple did not fall far from the tree, as we hear him tell an interviewer that “Israel makes no sense.” He questions why the state should exist, a story Al-Jazeera was quick to pick up.

That’s right. We do not need Farrakhan when we’ve got varieties homegrown. Alas, Rogen’s voice makes a sound throughout his “woke” generation.

Along comes a rebuke from Richard Trank, who uses gentle persuasion in the hope of showing Rogen the way to a Jewish heart…which would mean a love of Zion.

A lost cause.

Because Israel, from the ancient to the modern, is in your heart, mind and soul, or it isn’t, and if it isn’t, nothing’s going to help if you insist on being a wise guy.

Lapsed Jews… we do not forcibly send them to RE-EDUCATION camps.

So it isn’t much use giving that type a history lesson. It’s a waste of time mentioning the glory of Israel after centuries of dispersal.

When you have to explain our sufferings through the ages, from the pain of being scattered, you are already talking to deaf ears.

You may think you are making progress by pointing out what it was like when Jews were subject to the tender mercies of the nations.

But a wise guy like Rogen has already heard the stories, he knows the stories, but they can’t touch him, or move him, first because he’s got an act, a routine, which compels him to be cute, a contrarian, davka, and second because the trip from Vancouver to Jerusalem can be measured in more than miles.

The journey is about a faith that resisted unimaginable cruelties and the allurements of false deities to arrive at the grandest homecoming of all time.

Home at last. That is Zionism in a nutshell.

Why is this so complicated? Why does this stir animosity, even among some of our own?

Nu, Nu, Nu, my father (who survived Polish pogroms) would say…” Azoy iz est.” Or, “So it is.”

If he felt like it, he could give you chapter and verse from any page of Torah and Talmud as to why the apikorsim… Or he’d simply let it go with a shrug.

I’m feeling like that today. A shrug will have to do, and they will always be with us, won’t they.

The mistake, anyway, would be an intellectual approach, to which a wise guy already has a wisecrack.

He is trained to be witty, and he is conditioned to be caustic and sarcastic, and so he’s got you measured when you try reasoning.

Turns out, by the way, that Rogen is having second thoughts and is maybe apologizing, and this trick is also becoming tiresome.

Too late and too useless after the damage has been done.

Should have thought of that before. After is when people stop paying attention. The beginning is when it counts.

New York-based bestselling American novelist Jack Engelhard wrote the worldwide book-to-movie bestseller “Indecent Proposal,” the authoritative newsroom epic, “The Bathsheba Deadline,” followed by his coming-of-age classics, “The Girls of Cincinnati,” and, the Holocaust-to-Montreal memoir, “Escape from Mount Moriah.” 

anti-IsraelDiaspora JewryHollywoodSeth Rogen