Update (19:35 EST, Dec. 18): On Friday, Hammerman apologized for his column at his personal blog site. You can read that in full here.
Update (10:35 EST, Dec. 15): The Jewish Week has completely pulled the Hammerman post.
Update (16:40 EST): Huston has a screen capture that shows the Hammerman post before he scrubbed it of its offensive passage.
One Rabbi Joshua Hammerman, a columnist for The Jewish Week, went off the deep end into a cesspool of anti-Tim Tebow derangement in his December 12 post, "My Tim Tebow" problem.
Former NewsBuster Warner Todd Huston noted the most offensive passage of Hammerman's screed at the website HoosierAccess.com. This paragraph has since been scrubbed from Hammerman's post:
If Tebow wins the Super Bowl, against all odds, it will buoy his faithful, and emboldened faithful can do insane things, like burning mosques, bashing gays and indiscriminately banishing immigrants. While America has become more inclusive since Jerry Falwell’s first political forays, a Tebow triumph could set those efforts back considerably.
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It's so laughably absurd you'd think this were from The Onion. But Hammerman appears to be dead serious, even in his sanitized post, where grafs like these make clear Hammerman is a) a die-hard Boston sports fan and b) mentally unbalanced:
I admire much of what Tebow stands for. His mom’s decision to risk her own life rather than abort her fetus flies against my own – and Judaism’s – values, but neither am I pro-choice in all cases. His story is so improbable that if he were to win it all, a part of me would be wondering whether there is a Purpose behind it, just as I saw a divine hand in the equally unbelievable Red Sox victory of 2004. And it makes me wonder whether other Jews, the ones who don’t happen to have advanced degrees in religion and a few decades of rabbinic experience, might be even more seduced by this unfolding drama. Will legions of Southern Baptist missionaries hit the college campuses the very next day, spreading this new gospel of Tim? Already there is a “Jews for Tebow” Facebook page.
Tebow used to wear eye black citing Ephesians 2:8-10, which states, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith (in Jesus).” His avenue to salvation is not available to those Jews who wish to remain Jewish.
Unlike some other blue-staters, I do not fear people of faith. I fear people of certainty. The worldwide struggle going on right now is not between good and evil, but between certainty and doubt. It cuts across denominational lines: Progressive and Modern Orthodox Jews lie on one side of the divide, joining mainline Christians and moderate Muslims; and those on the other side are also Jews, Christians and Muslims; the people of certainty.
For me, only one thing is certain. On Sunday, I’ll be praying for the Patriots.
Did you get all that? Hammerman holds himself out as an extremely well-educated scholar who fears the illiterate religious masses will go nuts because a Christian athlete is a success on the gridiron. Of this he's certain, although he claims to "fear people of certainty."
As Bugs Bunny would say, "What a maroon!"
