Domestic goddess Roseanne Barr has had a serious conversion, both emotional and spiritual, and she is now one of the most ardent defenders of Israel on social media. Using the same uncompromising zeal she once utilized to own her first and most remarkable success on ABC, 1988 to 1997, this daughter of a working-class Jewish Salt Lake City family who once belonged to the Mormon Church, has been moving ever closer to her roots. And for someone identified so strongly with the American left, Barr is very astute on the realities of the Jewish State.
Speaking last week at a StandWithUs event at Temple Beth Abraham in Oakland, dedicated to fighting the BDS movement on college campuses, Barr told the moderator, Lenny Kristal—a South African friend who boasts that he was the one who helped change the comedienne from a critic to a supporter of Israel— “Once I started reading, and once I started exposing myself to a wider variety of news sources than Ha’aretz and the Guardian and [expletive] rags like that, and I started to expand my point of view, which I should have all along – I don’t blame anyone but myself – I just became so dogmatic.”
The exchange was actually reported by Ha’aretz, which shows you some leftwing newspapers have kept their sense of humor.
Then she added, “I’m going there for Purim, and I might be moving there, too. We might all be moving there,” and she appeared to be including everyone in the room.
Barr will participate in an anti-BDS conference in March, hosted by Yediot Ahronot. She also said she wants to work on solving the conflict with the Palestinians while she’s visiting. “If I could get one Palestinian grandmother to join me, me and her – I would be the representative of the Jewish people and she would be of the Palestinians – we would sit down and hammer out a peace agreement and hand it to the people in power. I don’t see why that can’t happen. Last time I was in Israel, I sought out Palestinian women and had wonderful conversations with them, and I will probably seek them out again.”
