Last week, following the shooting tragedy in Arizona, some rather unfair charges were leveled at Sarah Palin, and other Republicans, who have engaged in heated political rhetoric. Those leveling the charges seem more than willing to give a pass to Democrats who engage in similar tactics, including the President who once said, "If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun."
To refudiate these charges (malaprop intended), Ms. Palin accused those in the media of "blood libel." I have no intention of defending or ridiculing Sarah Palin. That ground has been covered by pundits on the right and the left.
Frankly, like many others, I wish this intellectual lightweight would vanish from the political landscape. I cannot believe there are some who actually believe she is fit for the office of President. She's not fit for night time television game shows. I know I could beat her at Wheel of Fortune and fairly confident I could take her down in Jeopardy. Unless the categories that came up were Caribou Stalking, Caribou Hunting, Caribou Shooting, Caribou Skinning, Caribou Cooking and Hair Bumps.
But I would like to address the less-talked-about topic of Blood Libel.
Believed to have been started during the First Crusade, Blood Libel is another canard, among many, that contends Jews ritually murder non-Jewish children and collect their blood. The blood is then placed on the table at the Passover Feast and used for dipping, not unlike a salsa, for Jewish Matzo.
Wacky, right?
I've been to countless Seders, and hosted many more, and witnessed some pretty unsavory foods on the table, like charoseths, karpas and zeroa, but not once have I ever seen my wife, or my aunt, or my grandmother ever put out a bowl of gentile blood (we don't even own a proper gravy boat.)
But maybe that's exactly what we should be doing.
The old standby joke about matzo is that it tastes worse than the cardboard box it came in. The fact that the Matzo and the box bear more than a slight resemblance doesn't help the matter. Perhaps some fresh goyish blood would.
We have three months before Passover, the question is which little children in the neighborhood should we include in our ritual slaughter? There's the two little boys that live next door to us. But my teenage daughters often babysit for them. And they make decent money at it. It probably wouldn't be wise, or very Jewish, to cut off that revenue stream.
Then there's the neighbor who just had a little baby girl. She's only 6 months old. And she's really adorable. Her blood would make a tasty addition to our holiday feast. But it could be hard to get to her. Her mother is always around. And she doesn't walk or crawl or ride a bike or even a skateboard...wait a minute.
There's that obnoxious, portly 11-year old boy from up the street. I don't know his name, but I think it should be Portlee. He's constantly skateboarding in front of my house. He's always falling on his fat ass as he tries to 'get air' off the curb. It's so damn noisy. Portlee could practice that trick for the next 1000 years and I guarantee he will never utter the phrase, "nailed it" with any veracity.
If we were to slay Portlee, drain his blood and serve it at our next Seder, the world would actually be a better place. Let's face it, chances are he would have graduated from a skateboard to a jetski and turned into a beer-guzzling, hell-raising river rat. Lord knows we don't need more of that. More importantly, Portlee will have contributed his body to the furtherance of an ancient and honored Jewish tradition that celebrates the liberation from bondage.
Because no man, no woman and no child should live under the yoke of slavery.
Particularly the children.
We need their blood.
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