Rand to Rabbis on Sitting Shiva

Will someone please tell Rand that Jews do not come from a different planet, Rand talking about Jews sounds like Donald Trump talking about "the blacks.-RW

Olivia Nuzzi reports:

Rand Paul seemed uneasy in a meeting with Orthodox Jews in which he stressed “tradition”—not surprising for a 2016 hopeful who some previously have accused of being anti-Semitic. 

 So "When I think of, um, the things that I've learned about your faith and where your faith intersects with my faith, one of the things I think about and one of the things that first comes to mind is tradition." 

Rand Paul was uneasily addressing about a dozen Orthodox Jews in a small conference room in Midwood, Brooklyn, at the headquarters of Torah Umesorah, the National Society for Hebrew Day Schools on Monday. It was an odd sight to behold: a sea of men, styled in Orthodox fashion, crowding around the tiny, folksy senator and presidential candidate from Kentucky. 

Few attendees were willing to explain why they were here. I walked up to a large man with gray hair who, when I asked his name (after he reminded me he couldn't shake my hand) said, "I'm a person who was invited here today and I don't know why." I asked his name again, and he replied, curtly, "Abe." Abe what? "Leave it alone, ok? I don't mean to be rude, especially because you're too pretty, ok?" 

Goldie Goldberger, director of the teachers’ center, said she believed Paul was "a great politician," but she wouldn't say whether or not she supported him for the nomination, admitting she knew little about American politics, having moved here just 10 years ago from Israel. "She'd know the answer," Goldberger said while pointing toward a different woman. 

At least Paul knew why he was here: "Tradition," the central theme of his remarks. "Freedom requires tradition the same way you could say liberty requires virtue," Paul says. "Bounded by tradition…a stabilizing force for civilization, a stabilizing force for our country, is our traditions…. When I was in Israel, we went to a Shabbat dinner. I love, uh, just sort of the traditions. A lot of the traditions aren't necessarily our traditions, but you know, I see things that I ask Dr. Roberts about, like Schindler's List, placing a rock on the, on the gravesite; the tradition of sitting shiva…" 

Oh boy.