Menschkeit

As a former New Yorker who once had the honor--I have to call it an honor, having read the article below--of waiting in line for tickets at a cinema in The Village a few places behind him, and a Sunni Muslim to boot, I have to say: Here's my kind of mensch! One who stands up and calls it like it is--even when one of "his own" is the offender:

Koch Calls for Pundit's Ouster from Shoah Council

Jennifer Siegel | Fri. Dec 08, 2006

Former New York City Mayor Edward Koch has called for Dennis Prager to resign or be removed from United States Holocaust Memorial Council, in response to the pundit's recent insistence that a Muslim congressman should not be sworn in using a Quran.

"There is no question that Dennis Prager is a bigot who ought to be repudiated even by his closest supporters," Koch said this morning in an interview with the Forward. "His statements are a disgrace … and I will be down there calling for the council to condemn him, and, if we have the power, to remove him."

...

Of course, what needs to be said is that this story never did quite make the same kind of waves that the original story of Mr Prager's bigotry did in the echo chamber of hurt, greviance, victimhood, and self-fulfilling predictiions that so dominates mailing lists and other fora that Muslims hang out on so much of the time. Do I have to be sarcastic and say "I wonder why?"

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