Glenn Beck appears to have finally managed to anger Anti-Defamation League Chairman Abraham Foxman by comparing "Reformed Judaism" to radical Islam. Foxman previously defended his trafficking in anti-Semitic stereotypes by citing Fox News' pro-Israel coverage. Here's Beck:
When you talk about rabbis, understand, that most people who are not Jewish do not understand that there are the Orthodox rabbis, and then there are the reformed [sic] rabbis. Reformed [sic] rabbis are generally political in nature. It's almost like radicalized Islam, to where it's just, radicalized Islam is less about religion than it is about politics. When you look at Reform Judaism it is more about politics I'm not saying it's the same...they're going to take it...it's not about terror or anything else, it's about politics. And so it becomes more about politics than it is about faith. Orthodox rabbis, that is about faith.
My favorite thing about Beck, just as a commentator, is the way he pretends like he has a deep reservoir of information on something while simultaneously confirming that he has no idea what he's talking about. Here he offers his listeners the inside dope on "Reformed Judaism," (presumably the denomination of George Bluth) smearing the largest single denomination of American Jews as faithless political manipulators. There is no thinner veil with which to dress prejudice than to split a group into a plain ethical binary, so Beck completely bypasses Conservative Jews, the second largest group.
The obvious difference here, if it really needs to be stated, is that Reform Judaism is very assimilationist and disregards elements of traditional Jewish law, whereas radical Islamists seek to impose a strict interpretation of Islamic law on everyone.
In a sense, all Beck is really doing here is repeating a common conservative view held about people of faith -- that "true believers" keep women in their place, oppose marriage equality, and vote Republican rather than spending time worrying about things like homelessness or income inequality. It's certainly true that Reform Jews are very committed to social justice, but all Beck's really saying here is that the "good Jews" are Republicans, and the "bad Jews" are Democrats. Which is probably what most of his listeners already believe anyway. That might not be the case if conservative Jews spent a little more time informing their colleagues that there's more to not being anti-Semitic than unconditional support for Israel.
