Whatever your politics it is an undeniably momentous and meaningful occasion that an African American woman is on the national ticket; this is a hopefully a positive step for our country. It speaks to VP Biden that he was willing to move beyond that debate (the reason I am writing is to clarify that the emes is if you watched the debate Sen. Harris NEVER called VP Biden a racist as implied by the subject line of this discussion rather she said she knew VP Biden was “not” a racist but disagreed with his reaching out to racist politicians and stance on busing) to the bigger picture to pick an undeniably accomplished and eminently qualified (in a general sense – not looking at stance on issues) running mate. We should all try not to bear grudges in our own lives. Let’s put aside voting for a moment (i.e. the argument (consensus) that President Trump-VP Pence is the ideal ticket to vote for on many fronts- in terms of Jewish/Torah values, Israel, etc.) and just focus on Sen. Harris (who regardless of who voting for, even if for President Trump-VP Pence, we should arguably get to know in case she is elected to be next VP) . She is arguably a relative moderate and looking at her support for Israel – when she ran for President – among the Democratic candidates Sen. Harris was (perhaps after Rep. Delaney) the most pro-Israel. The NY times asked all the candidates if Israel “meets international standards on human rights” – most of the Democratic candidates (as to be expected) took the opportunity to criticize Israel or talk about a two state solution – Kamala simply (impressively) answered “yes” (can google and watch this exchange). Perhaps the fact she has a Jewish husband (extremely sad that a Jewish man RL (inter)married her but have to make the best of the metzius hadevarim) and had a very positive visit to Israel will also help in terms of her support for Israel (of course no bearing on other values and policies). The election is still very much up for grabs, anything can happen in the next 80 days and President Trump being the political genius he is may very well pull out a shtarke win but as of right now in August it looks like it is VP Biden’s race to lose so all I am saying as a community it may behoove us not to berate and alienate Sen. Harris especially considering VP Biden’s age there being a strong possibility of her becoming President let alone VP. Bottom line is its all in the Ribbono Shel Olam’s hands- as chazal say “al tisvada lareshus”- our job as Yidden needless to say is to focus on our (Gemara) learning (iyun , daf, etc) and davening and chesed ; I just wanted to clarify the facts on the subject line of this discussion as stated above (that Sen. Harris did overtly call VP Biden racist) and to suggest (while encouraging others to express [even strong] opinions on her stances on the issues) to avoid overtly racist/defamatory and personal/disparaging comments about Sen. Harris on these forums over the next 80 days.
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