Washington – The White House, in the midst of an intense charm offensive aimed at the Jewish and pro-Israel communities, has dropped an archaic phrase that has, in the past, rankled Jewish groups.
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The use of the proclamation boilerplate “in the year of our Lord” for a celebration of Jewish Heritage Month had struck a slightly off-key note for Jewish groups in Obama’s last proclamation, as in those of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.
This year, the phrase has been replaced by the simple phrase, “in the year two thousand ten.”
Steven Freeman, an official at the Anti-Defamation League, tells Andrew Silow-Carroll that “we see it as a welcome, sensitive, and attentive gesture,” though it doesn’t seem ever to have been a major bone of contention.
And regardless of the phrase employed, the year is still calculated from the birth of Christ, after all.
who cares, if they’re not jewish, they should be able to call it whatever they want, and let us do what we want.
as long as they think they’re doing us favors, they’ll expect something back
Hey Obama,
Actions speak louder than words.
Its not what you say, its what you do that we are watching and judging you by.
The ‘talk’ ended after the election, now D0!
The folk at politico.com better not let their third grade nuns find them. If one chooses to believe that there was a Mr. Christ, his birth date is generally believed to be in year 4 BCE, that is, four years before the beginning of the common era.
If they were really serious about being sensitive to yiddeshe values, they would have dated the proclamation as 5770 rather than 2010 since we count from br’yias haolam rather than the birth of moishiach.
When I was sworn in at the Supreme Court in Washington, the application had a check box if we wanted to leave “of our Lord” off the certificate. I thought about it a bit (after all, I was in galut at the time and liked to acknowledge that), but decided at the end to have it left off.
(reply to #3) the fact that he existed, is mentioned in the gemarah (see a”z, b”b & sanhedrin). he just wasn’t anything special.
Meaningless. He is still a rabid anti-semite. Nothing changes this fact.
great now he can continue harassing Israel, and still say he’s good to Jews
They missed the point about the common era birth of yeshu thing. Regardless of if the count is off from his birth, the count, as commonly used, is of the common era. Its origins may be from yeshu’s birth, but it is simply a common era count for all but religious Christians.
Nice of him to change the wording, though.
Let them call it what they want. What difference does it make to us? History has proven that courtesies of any kind shown to Jews cause resentment and eventual reprisal. We know the score. Let them say what they want.
great now he can continue harassing Israel, and still say he’s good to Jews