JUST PLAIN STUPID

Those of you who are regular readers of the Blog know the appreciation I have for your intelligence -- in particular, in the intelligence that most of you who comment demonstrate. Every once in a while, however, there is a Comment so unbelievably stupid that it bears examination. Thus, the following Comment intended to respond to our Post on efforts in the Negev -- the successful from JNF and Ben Gurion University of the Negev and the minuscule from JFNA --

"If JNF and BGU weren't busy undermining the collective, sure. Why are you blaming JFNA for something most federations aren't willing to do? Or JNF and BGU for that matter." 

This brief Comment is just crammed full with such ignorance that I fear it came from JFNA-Israel, that bloated silo in Jerusalem.

Let's examine the quote. The first sentence demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of "the collective" and the functions of JNF and BGU; the second, total ignorance of the role of JFNA; the third sentence, incoherence. If we hadn't read this Comment together, we would probably find it impossible to believe that so much dreck could be shoved into three short sentences. I sense that this Anonymous Commentator is the same one whose anger and screed have forced me to reject earlier efforts.

We suggested that inasmuch as the JFNA-sponsored Negev Funding Coalition had failed to raise the threshold funds necessary to implement programs of substance in the Negev, that Israel would be better served by JFNA partnering with JNF and/or Ben Gurion University both of which have on-going multi-million dollar programs contributing now to the growth and development of this region so critical to Israel's present and future. Some of the readers who commented seem to have such a visceral hatred of JNF that their Comments had nothing to do with building the Negev or JNF's work there but, rather, with attacking JNF for everything from a gross lack of transparency to a lack of "collegiality." I was pretty shocked (and I am not easily shocked). 

Rather than focus on the insipidity of JFNA's convention of a small group of leaders in a "Master Class on Creative Placemaking" whatever that was, and however irrelevant to the creative work (we all remember what that is, don't we?) of BGU and JNF in the Region, some of you related only to your hatred of JNF. 

So do me a favor. Try to relate to the subject at hand. Is that too much to ask?

Rwexler