A.B. Yehoshua sticks to view...

Daphna Berman reports in Haaretz that A.B. Yehoshua is still hell bent to piss off as many people as possible by generating sound waves.

Novelist A.B. Yehoshua failed to strike a conciliatory cord in an address to Diaspora Jews yesterday when he reiterated his argument that only Israelis could be "total and committed" Jews. "People thought I was coming with a request for forgiveness, but no," he said. "I am not speaking with condescension, but rather pointing out the differences between the two realities. This is not a qualitative difference. I am not making a moral judgment but rather stating a factual difference." Jews outside of Israel, he added, were not "bad Jews" - despite the fact that they "put their Jewishness in a box" and compartmentalize their identities as is convenient.

To remind you what it is all about:

In May, Yehoshua caused a storm when he said that only Israel, and not Judaism, could ensure the survival of the Jewish people.

The fact that these sound waves, after being received and mulled upon just a bit, do not contain anything meaningful, does not seem to bother neither the esteemed writer nor our local provincial media.

The whole hullabaloo raises the eternal question: why is that the people who reach an exalted status in some professional field, consider themselves experts in everything under the sun? Aside of the unfortunate example of Mr. Yehoshua, the shining example of the distinguished linguist Noam the Master Mind diving into politics comes to mind immediately, but there are scores of similar examples (Stalin the professional thug and murderer lecturing writers would the most outstanding case).

And another question: why does our media pay attention to these outbursts, caused mostly by some digestion problems, inflated ego and an opportunity to bend someone's ear?

Not to mention the mysterious terms "total Jew" and "committed Jew". But let's leave that for another occasion.

Yeah... There are views to stick to and there are views to be stuck somewhere or other.
You decide.