"Some of my best friends are Juice"
[Wash Examiner] A member of a Jewish temple in New Mexico says Valerie Plame, a former CIA officer and a Democratic candidate for a New Mexico congressional seat, lied about her membership.
How very unexpected of her. | According to the Albuquerque Journal, a senior member of Temple Beth Shalom in Santa Fe accused Plame, 56, of falsely claiming membership to the temple after she told the newspaper she had recently found out her great-grandfather was a rabbi in Ukraine and she had "always been drawn to that aspect of my Jewish heritage."
What particular aspect might that be? Surely she knew the family came from Ukraine, a bright girl like her who travelled all over the world doing secret things while posing for Vanity Fair. And surely the CIA had discovered that there were Jews in her background. Does she plan to study for the rabbinate if she isn’t elected? | Daniel Yohalem, a Santa Fe lawyer and a member of Temple Beth Shalom who is on the temple's board told the Albuquerque Journal that, after going through the membership lists, Plame was never a member. "I am deeply concerned about Ms. Plame's repeated apparent lack of candor on these issues," he said.
And when a lawyer is concerned about someone’s candour... | Plame's campaign said she was a member "at Temple Beth Shalom for years."
A stupid lie, too. Why would she have been a member for years, an expensive undertaking at her presumed salary level, when she only recently discovered she has a 1/8th connection to the faith? One does need to ask, gently, if that rabbi is on her father’s side (where the Jewish descent doesn’t count for inheriting the religious membership, even though it had equal effect genetically) or her mother’s and, if the latter, if all the mothers down to her own never converted out... and she also never converted or was baptised. Or has she always known of the Jewish descent, and only recently became interested when a rabbi was involved? | The former CIA officer first became a national figure during the George W. Bush administration after her name was leaked to Washington Post columnist Bob Novak in 2003.
In 2017, Plame was forced to apologize after sharing on Twitter an anti-Semitic article from the UNZ Review entitled, "America's Jews Are Driving America's Wars." The article stated that Jews "own the media," that they should wear labels while on national television, and that their beliefs were as dangerous as "a bottle of rat poison."
Her initial response was: "First of all, calm down. Re-tweets don't imply endorsement. Yes, very provocative, but thoughtful. Many neocon hawks ARE Jewish." She later added: "OK folks, look, I messed up. I skimmed this piece, zeroed in on the neocon criticism, and shared it without seeing and considering the rest."
She apologized and quit the board of the Ploughshares Fund, which provides grants for projects aimed at preventing the spread of nuclear weapons. But, in the space of three years, she had posted nine UNZ articles, including one titled, "Why I Still Dislike Israel," and another about "Dancing Israelis" on 9/11.
She must have been such a positive influence on her diplomat husband’s career. |
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