Jan. 23, 2018 - Brother Nathanael
03:52
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| Time | Text |
|---|---|
| Growing up in a Jewish home and growing up with the New York Times. | |
| My father, like most Jews, was an armchair senator, a political animal, if you will, whose civic instincts were triggered by the headlines of the New York Times. | |
| It was my job as a kid to fetch the paper, that sole sustainer of the Jewish political spirit. | |
| The impress on my own psyche was such headlines as, Eisenhower wins in a sweep, men walk on moon, Kennedy's victory, remains sealed in my consciousness today. | |
| The whole time's event in our home remains sealed on my mind as well. | |
| No sooner would I fetch the paper that my father began his focused perusal, while my mother began the crossword puzzle. | |
| With her calling out every question and my father calling out every answer, his own read began with the editorials, then headlines, and curiously finishing with the obituaries. | |
| What was strange about his chronological survey in three parts, editorials, headlines, obituaries, is that my father spent more time on the last. | |
| For he would call out loud, like my mother, the crossword puzzle, every notable death that occurred. | |
| Stranger still, my father was more interested in the deaths of Gentiles than Jews, of which the New York Times listed plenty. | |
| I think it was because he admired the Gentile style of leadership, as he viewed it as being more forthright. | |
| Most Gentiles were practicing Christians in those days. | |
| Then came the headline, Kennedy is killed by sniper, followed by President's assassin shot, and the impress it made this time meant I would never be the same. | |
| I didn't know much about Kennedy, but loved him. | |
| He was young, good-looking, and had a certain debonair about him. | |
| All my Jewish and Gentile friends also loved him. | |
| His speeches with that Boston accent really grabbed us. | |
| There is little value in ensuring the survival of our nation if our traditions do not survive with it. | |
| And there is very grave danger that an announced need for increased security will be seized upon by those anxious to expand its meaning to the very limits of official censorship and concealment. | |
| That I do not intend to permit to the extent that it's in my control. | |
| And no official of my administration, whether his rank is high or low, civilian or military, should interpret my words here tonight as an excuse to censor the news, to stifle dissent, to cover up our mistakes, or to withhold from the press and the public the facts they deserve to know. | |
| My father was fond of him too, more because he was a Democrat. | |
| Jews voted Democrat in those days and knew that JFK opposed the nuclear ambitions of Israel, which may have been the reason he was shot. | |
| His attempts to getting to the bottom of Israel's secret nuke program may have played a big part in his assassination. | |
| I suspect it today, having grown up as a Jew privy to Zionist agendas. | |
| But the New York Times never reported on that. | |
| Instead, it pushed Lee Harvey Oswald as the lone assassin. | |
| We just can't seem to get to the bottom of things. |
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