Lesbians in synagogue: A Jerusalem Post reporter profiles
Yonat and her married lesbian lover, Sheli. Yonat attends the bar mitzvah of Sheli's son. While Sheli revels in being told by her mother at the party following the ceremony that she looked nice, Yonat turns up wearing the same pair of slacks she wore to the synagogue (she was the only woman in slacks there). At the party, she "is accompanied by a group of several other women Sheli explains are the "Minerva crowd." Minerva is the lesbian bar in Tel Aviv Sheli frequents when she is not driving her kids to after-school activities, or attending her bible-study group meetings with "the most inspiring rabbi she's ever met." "
"Sheli buzzes around making introductions. She introduces the bible-study women (whose hair is hidden because they are married) to the Minerva women (whose hair is hidden because they have crew cuts.)"
Dancing seems inappropriate, because a relative of Sheli's husband just passed away. But the reporter notes that drug-abuse appears to be ok, at least for the Minerva crowd. One half "slips out to the terrace to smoke marijuana; the other half goes to the ladies' room to snort cocaine but only after listening to the speeches of the bar-mitzva boy, his grandparents, and of Sheli and her husband."
"Who in the world are those friends of yours?" Sheli's mother pulls her off to the side to ask.
"Which ones?"
She stalls to catch her breath and calm her pulse. "All those ultra-Orthodox girls in the ankle-length skirts," her mother says, as if Sheli is being willfully obtuse.
Whether Sheli tells her mother what she has told me countless times about "those ultra-Orthodox friends of hers" that they are the "most understanding, most intelligent, kindest, and most uplifting people" she has the good fortune to know is not clear.
The piece is funny, but disjointed. I'm still trying to decide what the point was, or if it even had a point.
One of my cousins is a lesbian, and has a "partner." They have adopted and raised two fantastic kids, and are a welcome part of my extended family. They and a couple other examples indicate a trend in my family, at least on my father's side: as long as you're Jewish and raise your kids that way, no one could care less if you're gay, straight, or from Mars. If anyone does care, they do a decent job of keeping their mouths shut.
Ed Koch v. Woody Allen: Not exactly a battle of the intellectual titans, but interesting nonetheless. The two New Yorkers debate the
anti-semitic nature of the French.
The Demographic Wars: Ben Wattenberg (in the May 16
Wall Street Journal, link requires subscription) eaqmines the "demographic gun" which everyone says is pointed at Israel.
Truth is, fertility rates in Arab and Muslim countries have been falling rapidly in recent decades. Indeed, it would be remarkable were they not; it's been happening everywhere else.
Consider North Africa, using data from the United Nations Population Division. Forty years ago, the total fertility rate (number of children per woman) was 7.1. Today it is 3.1 and sinking like a stone. Egypt, the most populous Arab country, has seen its TFR plummet from 7.1 children per woman to just 2.9 today; Tunisia's is 2.1, below the rate required to keep a population stable over time in a less developed country, and down by a child in just a decade.
Go East. Syrian fertility has fallen from 7.8 to 3.6. Lebanon: 6.4 to 2.2, about replacement level and sinking. From peak year to the present, here are some other numbers: Jordan dropped from eight to 4.3 children per woman; Iraq from 7.2 to 4.8; Saudi Arabia 7.3 to 5.4. The numbers are still high by Western standards, but they're falling steadily.
Go further East. The incredible story is Iran, a theocratic and despotic Muslim country. At its peak, its TFR was seven children per woman. At a recent U.N. conference, an Iranian demographer delivered a paper which calculated the current TFR at 2.06 and falling. Like Iran, the most populous Muslim countries are not Arab. Nearly all -- including Turkey, Bangladesh and Indonesia -- have also seen major declines in fertility, only Pakistan remains high.
The Arab nations are vast in size but small in population. Beyond Egypt's 70 million there isn't an Arab nation with more than 35 million people, which is about as many folks as currently reside in California. The estimated total Arab population in all 22 member nations of the Arab League is about 280 million, slightly less than the population of the United States.
The bottom line is that the demographic situation for the Jews of Israel is not nearly as bleak as it is sometimes portrayed. The Jewish Israeli TFR is about 2.7 children per woman. It has come down some but it remains the highest of any modern country, the only one seriously above the replacement rate, and about twice the rate for Jews in the rest of the world.
Why? ... [Since 1948, many] Israeli families have had an additional child as an "insurance policy," fearing that one child may be lost in war. There is a certain paradox here: Waging war against Israel actually creates more Israelis. Of course, we have also heard the converse, that Israeli repression creates more Palestinian babies to reconquer Israel.
The U.N. issues data for what it calls the "Occupied Palestinian Territory." On average, Palestinian women are bearing 5.6 children, which is a very high rate, but down from an estimated eight in 1970 and seven in 1985.
The current population of Israel is six million, up from an estimated 1.2 million in 1950. U.N. estimates put today's population of the OPT at 3.1 million, up from one million in 1950. By the year 2025, Israel's population is slated to go to 8.5 million, boosted by continuing immigration. Meanwhile, the Occupied Palestinian Territory population, presumably to be called Palestine sometime before 2025, is slated to go to 7.1 million, but given the drop in Muslim fertility in neighboring countries, I'd guess it will be short of that. On the other hand, some of the Israeli growth will be coming from Israeli Arabs.
In short, in the next 25 years, Israel and Palestine will have grown into two countries of about 6 million to 8 million people each, living side by side, in peace or in war, one modern, one hopefully modernizing. The neighboring Arab countries, also hopefully modernizing, will grow, but they are not large countries and there will be less growth than has been anticipated.
Killion's killer reporting: MSNBC has a lengthy article on Palestinian refugees to commemorate the anniversary of the 1967 Six Day War. It is by
Nikole Killion , an international senior assignment editor and field producer for NBC News. As you might guess, given the date and the subject, it is quite pathetic.
Killian introduces Jordanian Queen Rania as one of the 2 million Palestinians who "relocated to Jordan after the wars of 1948 and 1967." Really? Her bio, from Britain's
Hello magazine, reads as follows:
Rania Yasin was born on August 31, 1970, in Kuwait to Palestinian parents. A doctor's daughter, she grew up in a comfortable home on the West Bank alongside her two siblings. She received a thoroughly Western education, first at the New English School in Kuwait City and then at the American University in Cairo, where she graduated with a business degree. In 1991 she moved to Amman, where her parents had settled after fleeing Kuwait along with hundreds of thousands of other Palestinians following the 1991 Gulf War.
HR says, "Like hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Jordan, Rania's family was driven out of... Kuwait."
Killion continues:
While Jordan has resisted some of the more radical Palestinian groups, such as the notorious expulsion of resistance fighters during Black September in 1970, arms smuggling into the West Bank continues to be a difficult issue.
Would that be the civil war in 1970 when Arafat and the PLO tried to overthrow Jordan's King Hussein? Hussein crushed the PLO and killed thousands of PLO and other Palestinians in Jordan.
Killion blames an "estimated 250,000" Palestinian refugees on Israel's victory in the Six Day war, when they "were forced to flee into Jordan and other Arab nations." He then intersperses tales of refugees from 1948 and those from 1967. "Despite the existence of a U.N. resolution that allows refugees the right to return to their homes, it has become nearly impossible for most Palestinians. Restrictive checkpoints, curfews and security raids have become a way of life in the West Bank and Gaza."
What do checkpoints have to do with Palestinians who want to return to West Bank towns such as Jenin or Tulkarem, or claim to have come from Netanya, Jaffa or Haifa? Nothing.
Back in the real world, tens of thousands of Palestinians have already been permitted to return to the West Bank over the last 30 years as part of Israel's "family reunification" program. Moreover, had Yasser Arafat accepted the Barak peace proposals at Camp David in July 2000, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians would have been able to settle in the Palestinian areas of the West Bank. Though Lord only knows why they would want to. The refugee camps (frequently described as "hellish") are in PLO territory and controlled by either the PLO or the UN.
Want to see these mistakes corrected? I don't know that anyone at MSNBC will listen, but you can still try.
By mail:
NBC News, 30 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, NY 10112
Or by email: letters@MSNBC.com
Or respond on line, using their
correspondence box
Brazil says: "Wuddint me": Michael Rubin of RFE/RL's Iraq Report:
Accusations by Human Rights Watch that Brazil continues to sell arms to Iraq are untrue, according to a 30 May report in the Sao Paulo center-right daily "O Estado de Sao Paulo." The "O Estado de Sao Paulo" report said that Brazil had not sold military equipment to Iraq since 1987 and that details of the Brazil-Iraq military relationship were publicly available in dossier CSN/192/90 in the old Brazilian National Security Council. The report chided Human Rights Watch for being selective with evidence and ignoring documents that contradicted its accusations. Prior to 1987, three Brazilian companies supplied Iraq with military equipment. Embraer sold 80 Emb-312 Tucano planes to Iraq, with Egypt as intermediary. However, "O Estado de Sao Paulo" said that Embraer severed all ties with Baghdad following the Gulf War and has not even supplied spare parts. Engesa, which collapsed in 1992, sold armored vehicles to Baghdad in 1987. Avibras Aerospace Industry sold air-to-ground rockets, bombs, and surface-to-surface rockets to Iraq, but it had to seek bankruptcy protection in 1991 when Iraq defaulted on a $50 million payment. "O Estado de Sao Paulo" conceded that 14 Brazilians, including at least one married to an Iraqi, are employed in the Iraqi arms industry where they remain due to exceptionally high salaries.
Arguing the nonsensical: The Wall Street Journal profiles the PLO's
pretty-faced lawyer today (link requires subscription).
How does a Wall Street lawyer defend suicide bombings in Israel? Gingerly. "We've got to ask why they are happening," says Michael Tarazi, who abandoned a corporate-law career two years ago to become a legal adviser to the Palestinian Liberation Organization in the West Bank. "Some Palestinians say we have no choice, that [terrorism] is the only thing that works. We have to give these people an alternative."
Jews should just peaceably abandon the whole of Israel. Great.
Born in Kuwait, raised in America and educated at Andover and Harvard, the 34-year-old U.S. citizen is emerging as the most articulate and sophisticated Palestinian advocate to come along in years. A rising star on the cable-news channels, Mr. Tarazi is everything most Palestinian spokespeople are not: young, witty, fluent in American English, knowledgeable about international law and steeped in Western liberal ideals.
His graceful speeches and sound bites, and sharp, well-researched legal papers, borrow a page from Israel's playbook: statesmanlike spin, in perfect English.
"Abba Eban comes to mind," says Rabbi Joshua Stampfer of Portland, Ore., after having lunch with Mr. Tarazi last month. Mr. Eban, South African-born and silver-tongued, helped win international support for the founding of Israel in 1948. "Tarazi is closer than anything the Palestinians have had before," Rabbi Stampfer says.
But he isn't there yet. On a recent speaking tour of several U.S. cities, Mr. Tarazi told civic groups and private gatherings that Palestinians are misunderstood. He called suicide attacks on Israelis desperate acts by desperate people -- acts he personally opposes "point blank," he said. Yet many listeners, after hearing him, said he comes across as almost too forceful, sometimes flippant and condescending.
Speaking at the World Affairs Council chapter in San Francisco, for example, Mr. Tarazi outlined a range of options that Palestinians are willing to explore for compensating or resettling their refugees. He was a study in open-mindedness, until this: "We'll ask Israel how many non-Jews can you take in your ethnically pure state, as racist as that is," he said.
Hmm, almost a cue to my Jewish state question of yesterday. And yet, no. Jews are not specifically a race or ethnicity, thank you very much.
As a child growing up in Pennsylvania and Colorado, Mr. Tarazi had no idea he was Palestinian. Then, one day when he was a 15-year-old sophomore at Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass., he called home to find his mother in tears over the massacre of hundreds of Palestinians at the Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps in Lebanon. "That's when she told me, 'We are Palestinian; those are our people,' " Mr. Tarazi recalls.
He went on to college and law school at Harvard, then worked in corporate law for seven years in New York and Europe, starting with the law firm White & Case and then becoming European general counsel for software-maker Euronet Services Inc. of Leawood, Kan. "I knew more Jews connected to Israel than Arabs," he says. "That gives me a unique place in this conflict."
Weary of corporate law, he resigned from Euronet two years ago and moved to the West Bank government seat of Ramallah. It was Mr. Tarazi's first direct contact with Palestinian politics. He eventually landed a job with the Palestinian Authority and was put to work on a new team of lawyers assembled to advise the PLO's peace-talks unit. But, increasingly since the deepening of Israeli-Palestinian hostilities this spring, his main task has been communications.
After lunch with some rabbis in Portland,
Mr. Tarazi was grilled by the editorial board of the Portland Oregonian -- "the most hostile reception I've ever had," he said afterward. Oddly, he says, Israeli audiences tend to be much more receptive to his maps and "myths" than do Americans, who give him a harder time.
Bob Caldwell, editor of the Oregonian's editorial page, complains that Mr. Tarazi "parses history" to fit Palestinian claims. For example, when asked about Israel's claims that Mr. Arafat financed terrorism, Mr. Tarazi dismissed the evidence in a technical "lawyerly" way more suited to a criminal trial than a search for truth, Mr. Caldwell says.
Immigration and Israel: Must we keep it a Jewish state: An interesting quandary for someone like myself, who favors regulated but mostly open immigration to the U.S. (call me libertarian, why don't you), but appreciates the Jewish nature of Israel. It is a million times easier to assimilate someone into American culture (and each assimilated person adds to and changes that culture in the process) than to convert an immigrant to Israel to Judaism if he or she is not already a Jew.
Israeli Guy
Gil Shterzer has raised this question.
Jews are welcomed in Israel at all times, others can and do immigrate for professional and marriage reasons. Israel is not a racist country, It's just trying to protect it self.
We can learn from history that Jews suffered from persecution in almost all the countries they lived in. Jewish interests were never taken into consideration in those states. The state of Israel was created to offer an alternative, to act upon Jewish interests.
Israel is tiny and heavily populated we can't allow in who ever who wishes to do so. if we will let everybody in we risk the lost of Jewish majority. And as we know only Jews sincerely care about other Jews.
I'm keen for input on this topic. Reconciling some of the basic tenets of a liberal democracy with ways for maintaining the Jewish state is no small feat. I've been unable to do so myself...
When the Internet does not help: I came across
Jews & Arabs dot com this morning. It sounded like a worthy effort:
The purpose of this site is to contribute to the peace effort between Jews and Arabs. We will be forever linked to the same land and we must strive to find peace between our peoples or forever suffer the resulting pain from the lack of it. ... They say that communication is the key to resolving divisiveness. ... Please feel free to express your views both positive and negative. Only through this process can the healing begin.
But reality intervenes as soon as you read the posts within or join the chatroom. It is just another venue for expressing hatred.
Shalom to the new kid on the blog: Jonathan, here's to many posts for the future (Lord knows I haven't been pulling my weight around here). As an aside, wouldn't it be kinda funny to see the lyrics to the Beatles song "Hello Goodbye" in Hebrew? "I don't know why you say Shalom, I say Shalom." That would be really confusing. Also, if you're looking for the ultimate in Jewish dating futility check out
Frumster, a sort of JDate for Orthodox Jews. They have a funny way of categorizing religiosity. I'd never heard of "Carlebachian."
Welcome to a new Kesher Talk blogger: All hail Jonathan Distler, new member of the blogging team here at KT and ready to shamelessly expose the trials and tribulations of ... well, Jewish dating, at least. Read his first stab below.
JDate: Ok, getting back to the practical world here, let's talk about the mecca of all single, online Jewish men and women: Jdate. Just a few points to begin the conversation:
1. PROFILE VERBIAGE: I really wish people were more candid, it would make things so much easier. "Hi, I am a self-absorbed moderately intelligent woman whom you will be aimlessly trying to please. My interests include shopping, going to the gym and intimate conversations." Or "If you're looking for a BIG woman to sit on you, contact me!" Another good one, "I am rebounding and looking for a non-complicated, mature, quick affair. Please evaluate your maturity BEFORE applying. Thanks." I am also perplexed by people who designate themselves as easy going and opinionated, quiet and adventursome, flirtatious and shy...how does that work exactly? I mean, what do you have to lose by being brutally honest? The bottom line for most people, is they will look at your picture and go from there anyway. It's a shallow process, so have fun with it and BE HONEST. :)
2. PROFILE PHOTOS: Even if you're married, I encourage you to go out and check out some of the most unflattering photos people choose to be their first impression to the world. I like the ones where they've obviously posted an old picture of themselves with an old boyfriend and cut the guy out. Or ones where they are holding their favorite teddy bear ... awwww. Hilarious. I also like comparing profile body size with the photo -- perhaps "fit and trim" means something different to me :)
3. DECLINE CONTACT -- USE COMMON COURTESY: Finally, a bone to pick... I've had women write to me who for whatever reason I've not been interested in meeting. I take 2 mintues and click, "Decline Contact." They give you an option to "decline contact" and it's just common courtesy for decliners to tell declinees. I do it and I appreciate the candidacy when women do it. But I get the feeling most people are too chicken-s**** to do it. Be an adult and don't just delete the email. My two cents.
Has anyone actually had success using JDATE? What do you think? Inquiring minds want to know.
Jordanian professors possibly fired for not calling a spade a spade: UPI reports that 8 professors of Islamic studies who
refused to label human bomb attacks as suicide operations have been fired from public universities in Jordan.
The sources, who insisted on anonymity, said five professors from the University of Jordan in Amman, two from Muta University in Maan in southern Jordan, and one from Yarmouk University in the northern city of Irbid were "arbitrarily dismissed" over a period of two weeks.
Officials at the three universities confirmed the professors' "resignations," but said they were "an internal university issue."
A statement from the Muslim Brotherhood, one of the country's most powerful Islamist groups, criticized the move, saying it was made to please the United States "in its fight against terrorism."
Brotherhood sources quoted the professors as saying university officials told them "they have to either resign or be dismissed upon security orders."
Most of those dismissed were graduates and former professors of sharia, or Islamic law, in Saudi Arabia. They "refused to amend the ideology curricula to describe the martyr operations as suicide bombings," the Brotherhood sources said.
The Muslim Brotherhood weekly, As Sabeel, Wednesday quoted Ali Utoum, the professor of sharia fired from Yarmouk University, as saying the decision is "a political one aimed at my Islamic affiliations and against the Islamic movement of which I am honored to be a part."
Syrian Dam Collapses, Syrians damn the Israelis: ABC News reported last night that, "In Syria, part of a dam collapsed about 200 miles north of the capital Damascus. The government said the flood of water caused massive damage to several villages nearby." See more on this from
UPI.
Damn the Washington Post: Like the LA Times and others, they've instituted a number of pop-up ads on their website. The Post ones are so bad that they are causing my browser to crash every time I visit the site.
"Militants" slaughter more Israelis: A car bomb in the north killed at least 12 people and wounded more than 20. NPR went over the details in grisly detail this morning, and said the "militant" group Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.
UPDATE: Make that 17 killed, not 12.
CNN also lovingly refers to IJ as militants.
Our buddies in Saudi Arabia: Michael Barone (editor of US News & World Report) was on the Fox News Channel's "Hannity & Colmes" last night talking about them:
There's one thing that I think is particularly important. I've talked now about--heretofore about links of the Saudis to the terrorist attacks and to terrorist organizations. There's another important thing that they're doing that works very much against American interests and the interests of decent, civilized people everywhere, and that's the promotion of this Wahabist brand of Islam. Unlike most forms of Islam, it prescribes a totalitarian society. It says that the only decent society you can live in is the kind of society that runs by the sorts of rules in Saudi Arabia where there is no freedom of religion, where there is no freedom of speech, where there is no respect for women, where there is the seven non-negotiable demands of human liberty that George W. Bush talked about... None of them is honored in Saudi Arabia, and they are spreading this form of totalitarian religion and hatred in the United States, in Muslim countries, in Asia, in Muslim communities in Europe by financing and subsidizing clerics...
Scientific Boehner: Iain (proprietor of The Edge of England's Sword) has a new article in
The American Prospect today, on the new creationism ("intelligent design") and
the congressmen who support it.
Further explanation is available from Iain, but not in his article. He exlains his opposition to "ID" as being against its teaching as "science," not against it being taught at all:
That isn't to say I don't think the overall idea should be taught in schools. I think the establishment clause of the First Amendment has been way over-interpreted. If you're going to take a constructionist line on the 2nd Amendment then you also have to ask what establishment meant to the founders. I think it's pretty clear it meant an Established Church of the United States, with Bishops and Canon Law and so on. In no way does it ban teaching general religion in schools, to my mind, especially if it's comparative religion. However, this theory should not be taught as science. It's philosophy dressed up as science, and it just doesn't cut it. (Actually, as philosphy goes, it could make a pretty good introduction to the philosophy of science as a segue from the philosophical question of the existence of god.)
Site status: All the important kinks seem to have been worked out. The old blogspot site now redirects to this one, permalinks work fine... anything I missed?
Kudos to Dan Hartung, proprietor of
Lake Effect, for helping with the redirection problem.
New Blog Not exactly Earth-shattering words, I know... but Stephen Sharkansky (whose work challenging the San Francisco Chronicle's slavish devotion to Arab journalists I've highlighted in the past) now has
his own.
Anti-Israeli conference in Iran: From the RFE/RL's June 3 Iran Report:
Another "Support for the Palestinian Intifada" conference was held in Tehran on 2-3 June, with earlier ones being held in April 2001 and in December 1990. Representatives of Hamas, Hizballah, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine -- General Command (PFLP-GC) participated in this most recent event, just as they did in the earlier conferences. Also in attendance were over 160 officials from Iran and 23 other countries, according to IRNA.
The conference had three aspects: the intifada, "the recent crimes committed by the Zionist regime and American support for such crimes," and Zionism and the Islamic world, Tehran television reported on 2 June. PIJ Secretary-General Ramadan Abdallah Shallah, Hizballah Deputy General-Secretary Sheikh Naim Qasim, and PFLP-GC General-Secretary Ahmad Jibril heard a warning from conference Secretary Hojatoleslam Ali-Akbar Mohtashami-Pur: "Dissension, discord, and despondency among Islamic governments will contribute to the growth of that cancerous tumor, Israel."
PIJ's Ramadan Abdallah claimed that America has declared war on Islam and the freedom-loving people of the world, according to Tehran TV. He said, furthermore, "Contrary to popular perceptions, America is trying to annihilate the ideal, as well as the land, of Palestine." He also said that "martyrdom operations" (a euphemism for suicide bombings) would continue, saying "We have the right to sacrifice our bodies for something that is more sacred than our own lives and America does not have the right to oppose this."
PFLP-GC's Ahmad Jibril warned of a plot to end the Palestinian uprising. Jibril said, according to Tehran TV, that the only way to liberate Palestinian lands is to "act on the basis of the ideas of the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran."
A message from Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned against negotiating with Israel, IRNA reported. "Failures of the Zionist regime and its accomplice, the United States, have forced these criminals to resort to new tactics in order to save themselves from plunging further into the current quagmire. The new strategy of bringing the Palestinians back to the negotiation table is only intended to divide the Palestinian groups, thus quelling the flames of intifada."
Iran's parliament speaker, Hojatoleslam Mehdi Karrubi, told the conference, IRNA reported on 2 June, that Islamic states should support the intifada. Karrubi also called on oil exporting countries to cut their oil supplies to Israel and its allies. "Oil-rich countries are called upon to use oil or other means in their hands as weapons against Israel by refusing to sell it to those governments which assist the Zionist regime." (Bill Samii)
Looking for Israel supporters in New Jersey on June 23rd:
Solidarity Rally- We Stand With Israel Now and Forever
When: Sunday, June 23, 2002, 10:00 AM
Where: The Greystone Manor, 260 South Street (Rt. 79), Freehold NJ
Keynote Speakers - Israeli Music by Shlomo Haviv
Participating Organizations: Marlboro Jewish Center, Freehold Jewish Center, Temple Beth Shalom, Union Hill Congregation, Temple Shaari Emeth, Solomon Schechter Day School of Greater Monmouth County, Chabad/Lubavitch of Western Monmouth County, JCC of Western Monmouth County, Temple Rodeph Torah
Looking for Volunteers and Sponsors from the Business Community.
For information contact: Temple offices or e-mail Susan at: IsraelRally@hotmail.com
There will be NO solicitation of funds at this event; come to support Israel.
100% of the funds raised through sponsorship from the business community will go to Israel toward the ISRAEL NOW EMERGENCY CAMPAIGN
ARAB TERRORISM IS NOT JUST A JEWISH PROBLEM!!
Sponsored by The Jewish Federation of Greater Monmouth County
Jewish Links of the Day:
- The Beginner's Yiddish dictionary. No longer will you have to scratch your head or mutter "Oy Vey" when your elderly relatives start to scold you. Now, you can understand them and get upset for a much better reason!
- Yizkor Online, a service providing reminders for your important yahrzeit, kaddish, or yizkor. The website includes information on traditional practices and meaning, and appears to encourage discussion of them.
It also lets you create a "virtual memorial"...
Sheesh, this is depressing.
Jay Leno last night: "A new study by NASA released today says that a 45-minute afternoon nap increases a person's performance by 35% and improves their ability to make decisions by 50%. So the next time you see an airport security guy sleeping at the monitor, he's just improving his on-the-job performance."
Anti-Israeli media bias has a Biblical precedent:
As described in Numbers (chapters 13-14), the Jewish people left Mount Sinai poised to enter the Holy Land. God permitted Moses to send 12 spies -- one prince from each tribe -- to scout the land and report back.
When the spies returned, they gave a negative report, saying that the land was "unconquerable." This demoralized the people, and in turn led to national hysteria. Two of the spies, Caleb and Joshua, unsuccessfully tried to sway the people back.
As punishment for believing the report, God condemned the nation to wander and die in the wilderness. A new generation would enter the land 40 years later. ("First Report from the Holyland")
"Anyone who quotes a statement in the name of the one who said it brings salvation to the world." That was the Sage-ly interpretation of the Book of Esther, where Esther helps save the Jews by warning her King about an assasination attempt, but clearly letting him know that the warning came not from herself, but from Mordechai.
Thus begins a discussion on the Jewish ethics of giving proper credit for your work. A freelance writer asked
The Jewish Ethicist about a case where he was denied proper attribution for an article he freelanced. Most people in the business world never receive proper credit or attribution, but most writers (including myself) demand it.
What to do?
- "in order to avoid taking advantage of the author, he or she needs to be informed in advance that the work will appear under someone else's name."
- "it is improper to hoodwink the reader by clearly implying that the work is original. Jewish law clearly forbids taking credit for something we didn't do, even if it is not at someone else's expense."
Along came a Spider... man: The creator of a Jewish super-hero comic book series reads heavily into Spider-Man and sees a metaphor for
Jewish activists.
"At a time when Jewish sensibilities are raised by unfriendly press coverage of Israeli defensive actions, we relate to a superhero who finds the newspapers against him when his sole aim is to defend the innocent."
The author created "The Jewish Hero Corps, a team of Jewish superheroes whose common enemy is Jewish amnesia."
Are you tired of terrorists getting away with murder? That is the question asked by
Terror Petition.com. They want to collect signatures for a petition to be given to major news organizations, to tell them to call a spade a spade and a terrorist a terrorist.
Kansas City teens not exactly lining up for summer trips to Israel: Three teens had signed up to go to Israel through United Synagogue Youth: Brian Goodman, Jennifer Polsky and Jonathan Treinish. At press time, however, Jennifer's parents were seriously considering withdrawing her from the program. Amy Jacobson, Israel programs coordinator for the Central Agency for Jewish Education, said she is not aware of any other local Jewish youths taking part in summer programs in Israel this year.
Ellen Polsky, Jennifer's mother, said she and her husband had been undecided about sending Jennifer. But right now it looks as though she will not be going.
"With everything going on, to quote my husband, once all the terrorist stuff started inside the country as opposed to just the outside territories, that's what has been the deciding thing for us," Ellen Polsky said. "Our other daughter, Rene, was hoping to go to Hebrew University for a year this next year, and she has put that off. She's hoping to go in the spring semester."
Polsky said Israel was "one of the greatest experiences of my life, and I'd hate for my kids to have to miss out on it." She said she also worries that a whole generation of children may miss out on a trip to Israel.
"If these kids don't have this experience, that will be a generation that won't have that connectedness," she said. "I know they can go later, and I know they can do the Birthright thing. But 10 days is not the same as going six weeks. It's a completely different experience. (It) gives kids a spiritual and educational bonding with the country that can't be matched through just learning through textbooks and hearing about it through other people."
Stan Goodman said he is sending his son, Brian, this summer, although he understands why most parents "have chosen the safe route under the current circumstances in Israel" to opt out of the program.
Brian said there is no particular thing to which he is looking forward: "Just going to Israel; being able to go despite all the stuff going on."
Stan Goodman has personal reasons for letting Brian go. He said both of his parents were Holocaust survivors. At age 16, the same age as Brian, Stan Goodman's mother was denied an education when the Nazis put her and her family into a ghetto.
"My parents did not surrender to those who would have wished them dead," Stan Goodman said. "They did not surrender their will to live, their dreams and aspirations for their future. Carrying on my parents' legacy, ... I too will not surrender to the Palestinian agenda, to weaken the will of continued support of Israel. I will not let them deny my son, as those in the past denied my mother, what I feel is the most important Jewish educational experience he will ever have, at an age where it will have (more) impact and meaning than at any other time in his life. When better than now for him to understand, both in mind and in heart, that the existence of the State of Israel is directly linked to the existence of Judaism throughout the world?"
Quoting Hillel, Goodman says, "If not now, when?"
"As my parents survived the Nazis of the past, Brian, my family and I will survive the Palestinians of today." (
Kansas City Jewish Chronicle, May 31)
Jewish neighborhoods in NYC were the original target in first WTC bombing in 1993: An Iraqi man who admits helping out with the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993 says Jewish parts of New York City were the bombers' original targets.
In an interview with the U.S. television network CBS, Adbul Rahman Yasin says convicted bombing mastermind Ramzi Yousef first planned small-scale bombings in Jewish neighborhoods. But he says Youself decided an attack on the World Trade Center would be easier and kill more Jews. (
Voice of America)
Observer article on Iraqi opposition funding was cut: I received this from AEI's Laurie Mylroie over the weekend:
This article--on State Dep't efforts to undermine the opposition Iraqi National Congress--was supposed to appear in The Observer today. But the news and editorial section of the paper was cut for World Cup coverage and this important piece got bumped.
INC funds
by David Rose
THE MIDDLE East, as several former spooks have stated since September 11, is hostile ground for western intelligence agencies, and for obvious reasons, Iraq is the most hostile territory of all.
Which makes it very strange that the US government, in the shape of the State Department, is currently doing all it can to shut down the only reliable pro-western source of intelligence on Saddamıs dictatorship, the clandestine "information collection programme" run by the Iraqi National Congress. Whatever Bush may say about the "axis of evil," the INC is anathema in much of Washington, because it wants to replace Saddam not with another military strongman (the State Department Arabists' preferred option) but a pluralist democracy.
I have seen the INC information network in action in several countries bordering Iraq, and it is pretty impressive. Equipped with digital cameras, satellite phones and laptop encryption software, its agents run regular missions inside the country, exfiltrating information and, when necessary, dissident human beings. Some of the resulting intelligence is shared with journalists; some with western authorities usually not the CIA, but the Defense Intelligence Agency, run by the INC's main US allies in the Pentagon.
This work is run on not much more than a shoestring. Since September, the State Department has repeatedly cut the INCıs grant, approved by Congress in 1998. Last week, after yet another inspection at the INC London headquarters, US officials said further funds would only be paid if the INC stopped all intelligence gathering immediately. They could carry on with their TV station, but spying was out.
That, the INC leader Ahmad Chalabi says, is totally unacceptable: it would "disembowel" his organisation, turning it into precisely the posturing, irrelevant body its US Government critics frequently claim that it is.
Then that, I suppose is the point. Some war on terror. Drifting and divided, this US Administration is willfully seeking to make sure it continues to grope in the dark.
Arabs want Alan Keyes off the air: Hey, don't we all? His show, "Alan Keyes is Making Sense," on MSNBC, makes little sense. But that is not why an Arab group wants to petition his show to be cancelled. It is because Keyes had the temerity to send
this letter supporting Israel. For shame, Alan!
Saudi Imam, on Saudi government TV, gave Friday sermon ...: Riyadh Kingdom of Saudi Arabia TV1 in Arabic, official station of the Saudi Government, 31 May 2002 at 0926 GMT carried a
live sermon from the holy mosque in Mecca.
The nation has never been in such a dire need to follow the example of the prophet in this age of tribulations, sedition, open challenges, and mean plotting by the enemies of Islam. I mean especially those whom God cursed, got angry with, and turned into monkeys, pigs, and tyrant worshippers among the Jewish aggressors and criminal Zionists. Their course is supported by the advocates of credit and worshippers of the Cross, as well as by those who are infatuated with them and influenced by their rotten ideas and poisonous culture among the advocates of secularism and westernization.
Could this be rumblings to the better in Syria? Ha'aretz reports that some
Syrian army brass "stationed in Lebanon are unhappy with the expanded freedom of action Syrian President Bashar Assad has allowed Hezbollah. It seems that the Syrian intelligence chief in Lebanon, General Ghazi Kana'an, is among the senior officers who have expressed reservations about Hezbollah in recent months."
Indonesia's vice-president visits with Al-Qaeda-linked groups: Amid international concerns about terrorists linked to the al Qaida network continuing to operate in Indonesia, the Indonesia's vice president, Hamzah Haz, decided to find out for himself. Although the vice presidency is a largely ceremonial office in Indonesia, Haz's opinions about Islamic radicalism are politically significant. His reputation, until now, has been one of a man whose maneuvers have always been cautious.
Until now.
His visits and dinners with Muslim hard-line clerics, however, reached a peak of controversy this week, with Abu Bakar Ba'asyir, the leader of the Jemaah Islamiyah regional terrorist group and the Muslim cleric alleged to be the ideological leader on an organization linked to al Qaida.
That exchange drew even more fire than one earlier in May, when Hamzah Haz visited the detained leader of the Laskar Jihad (Holy Warriors) Islamic militia, Jafar Umar Thalib, whose militia has fought to evict Christian from the sectarian-ravaged Moluccas islands. Thalib is being held for allegedly inciting a massacre of Christian villagers in Moluccas in late April.
Ba'asyir has been named by Singapore and Malaysia as a possible leader of a group that they say has ties with al Qaida network and was plotting attacks on U.S. targets in Singapore.
So why is the veep really doing this? Some speculate it is simply for political gain:
Haz, who leads Indonesia's largest Muslim political party that forms a key plank in the shaky coalition government, also denied any political motive... It was a "personal matter" to express sympathy among Muslims, he said.
A few days after the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington that left about 3,000 people dead, Haz told worshipers at a Jakarta mosque that the attacks "will cleanse the sins of the United States."
Critics and political experts criticized such talk, saying it could be considered by international communities to legitimate radicalism in the country amid issues of Megawati's weak in handling Muslim hard-liners.
Analysts expressed belief that Haz is just looking for supports from among Indonesian Muslims, including the militant groups to garner votes, as he is widely expected to vie for presidency during the country's next general elections, in 2004. But such a move could boomerang.
"Such a move can jeopardize Haz's political career once he has to face the international world," said a political analyst Afan Gaffar.
New column: I've got today's Data Dump column on TechCentralStation. A recent study on pesticide residue showed that organic produce is
by no means pesticide-free...
