Economists Against Israel: Did you see the Christian Science Monitor article on
Monday claiming Israel has cost the U.S. around $1.6 trillion since 1973? My
latest column for TCS shows how the economist who made this analysis overstated and exaggerated the so-called "costs," while ignoring or maligning all the benefits.
Update: Mike Fox was apparently the first blogger to
smack down this economist.
More Updated: My first piece of hate mail resulting from the TCS article just arrived:
From: Shaun Manesh (Email: shaunone@yahoo.com)
I am truely amazed by your right wing israeli propoganda. Not in a single article have you proposed a sincere peace process other than the fact that you represent the likud party agenda. You are an israeli who is disguised as an american. I will bet you that in the hypotetical scenario of a war between US and Israel, you will fight against the US. All of your artciles are anti middle east and anti muslim. You even have to make fun of Moslems beging subject of prejuidce in the US. If you quit your racist attitude and write more balanced articles may be you get more respect. But as for now, you are contributing more to the current conflict with your pen. So please give up the financial gain and write the truth. I wish you prosperity, merry christmas and balaned writing. May Jesus shine a light in your lonely heart.
Positioning your teffilin: Well, doesn't this just make me look lax? I have not put on my tefillin in ages.
Tefillin are supposed to remind us of God's mitzvot. They are usually worn for morning davening, on every day but the Sabbath. Spinning off of the commandments set out in the Sh'ma (same as cause us to put up a Mezuzah), one case is tied to the arm, with the scrolls at the biceps and leather straps extending down the arm to the hand, then another case is tied to the head, with the case on the forehead and the straps hanging down over the shoulders.
But back to my story. Shortly after my bar mitzvah, my friend Jeff and I started frequenting Sunday morning services as a way to avoid a horrificly boring Sunday school class. We hung out with the "Minyaneers," the old Jews rom the Men's Club at our shuel who daven together almost every day. They helped us learn how to put on the tefillin properly, taught us prayers, and so on. Plus, we got to join them for bagels afterward.
However, once our teacher intervened and made us return to class (I think we got away with this for only a few months), tefillin was no longer a part of my life.
The frum blogosphere (a blogger named
Baruch Leibowitz) has turned up a useful link for people like myself who haven't put on their
tefillin in a long time.
The blood curve. An Israeli commentator
points out that, statistically,
. . . every time Israel withdraws, the hostilities increase. Every time Israel promises a withdrawal, the killing curve rises. Therefore, during former prime minister Yitzhak Shamir's tenure, far fewer Israelis (and Palestinians) were killed than during the tenures of former prime ministers Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres. Therefore, during the period of Netanyahu's territorial miserliness, fewer Israelis (and Palestinians) were killed than during Barak's period of territorial generosity. Thus, in the given Middle Eastern reality, handing over territory does not bring peace. Nor does it bring tranquillity. On the contrary - handing over territory costs human lives.
File this next to the
ICT study of terrorism victims - apply as needed to fatuous comments about Israel's "occupation." (via
Diane)
NYC schools ban Nativity scenes but allow Jewish, Islamic symbols: How ridiculous can they be? The New York City Department of Education feels that Hanukkah menorahs and the Islamic star and crescent are
secular, but not the nativity scene?
Mind you, they have also declared that the Xmas tree is secular... A talk show host yesterday claimed that the Xmas tree inclusion made it all ok.
The Top 50 Jews of the Year: The
Forward has this interesting (and debatable)
list. What do I think of the Top 6?
- Paul Wolfowitz - I can't really argue with this choice.
- Abraham Foxman - The national director of the Anti-Defamation League, and the ADL, has gotten under my skin frequently over the years for seeing anti-semitism behind every tree. Yes, Abe, anti-semitism still exists, but it is not the pervasive force or sentiment of days of yore (of course, it is a renewed problem in Europe). If you want to know what I am complaining about, read Tim Cavanaugh's excellent expose on the anti-defamation industry from December's Reason magazine.
- Yechiel Eckstein - the unofficial ambassador to the Evangelical Christian community from many American Jewish groups, as well as Israeli politicians. That the Forward puts him this high on the list may mean they have started to accept that the evangelicals do not have to always be feared or loathed. Welcome to maturity, Forward!
- Thomas Friedman - The NYT columnist's political stances vary ocaisionally, but he is about as intelligent as it gets at his paper, and among most journalists. His low point for the year (which he will mistakenly presume is the high point) was when he pushed the Saudi plan for peace in the Middle East, which was more his idea than theirs ... and it showed in how much support they lent to it...
- Andrea Levin - Who? Oh, she is head of the Committee on Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America, CAMERA. I am sure she gets a lot of attention, but the real grass-roots media bias bashers, who do it much more frequently than Levin's outfit, are Honest Reporting.
- Norm Coleman - Poised to become the most public face of Jewish Republicans, the Senator-Elect from Minnesota describes himself as a "Jewish kid from Brooklyn married to a nice Catholic girl from Minneapolis." Good enough for me.
A lot of the names on the rest of the list are unfamiliar to me, though the organizations they lead sometimes ring a bell. And I must admit I have no idea Christopher Hitchens was Jewish...
To my wife, please note that the Forward did include Jewish Olympic figure skaters Sasha Cohen and Sarah Hughes...
Arafat's secret Swiss bank account: Well, one of them at least. The
Associated Press reports:
Former Israeli envoys to peace talks with the Palestinians were involved in the illegal transfer of $300 million in Palestinian funds to Yasser Arafat through a secret Swiss account, one of the envoys disclosed Thursday. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said an investigation was opened Thursday into the new charges, which come as international pressure builds on Arafat to reform his Palestinian Authority and crack down on corruption. Israel has long accused Arafat of controlling a secret slush fund.
The money was transferred from an official Palestinian Authority account in the West Bank by Arafat and one of his top aides, said Ozrad Lev, a former assistant to one-time top Israeli envoy Yossi Ginossar. He said he could no longer live with the secret. Lev, an accountant, said he and Ginossar helped open and manage the Swiss account.
... The United States and European donors to the Palestinian Authority – as well as the World Bank and new Palestinian finance minister, Salam Fayad – have been searching for the funds since the Arafat aide, Mohammed Rashid, withdrew them last year, according to the newspaper report.
Ginossar – who oversaw top negotiations with the Palestinians for almost a decade until last year – allegedly worked with Rashid to set up the account. Rashid oversees Arafat's secret funds and is seen as a key figure behind alleged corruption in the Palestinian Authority, the Maariv report said. As part of the business dealings, Ginossar made $10 million through Rashid, Lev said. The report says Ginossar managed Rashid's funds, "using them as his own, establishing countless offshore companies (and) secretly paying Mohammed Rashid set percentages and commissions from gas and cement deals in Israel," from which he also took a cut. Rashid told Lev that he made "at least $10 million" for Ginossar, according to the Maariv report.
Ginossar, who was selected by Israeli prime ministers for his close personal and business relations with Palestinians, denied any wrongdoing.
... Lev told Maariv how he personally persuaded the respected Swiss bank, Lombard Odier & Cie., to open an account for Arafat in April 1997. Funds from an official Palestinian Authority account at a branch of the Arab Bank in Ramallah, the West Bank, were transferred to the Swiss account, Lev said.
It is not clear if the Ramallah account contained money donated by foreign countries or involved tax receipts or other income, the newspaper said.
The foreign account was opened with copies of Arafat's personal documents, including his passport, but for a front company named Ledbury, the paper said. The company's name was later changed to Crouper by the Israelis due to concerns too many people knew about it. Lev said he did not know where the money ended up. "The money could have been used for personal needs, to form a shelter for Arafat and senior Palestinian officials, to pay salaries or even, and I really hope not, for illegal activities," Lev said. The money was transferred by Rashid to an unknown destination some time last year, Lev said.
George W. Bush, Jew? The secret is out, according to this man in Kenya:
WEDEMAN: And some in the streets of Mombasa's bustling old city had allegations of their own.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: America is 98 percent, all their top are Jews. In short, they are Jews, from Bush to the rest, to the all -- from origin Jews.
WEDEMAN (on camera): You think Bush is Jewish?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, the mother of Bush is Jewish.
WEDEMAN: You mean Barbara Bush?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm sorry, I have (UNINTELLIGIBLE). It's true.
You never know quite what you might learn on
CNN...
This startling revelation helped
Rick Heller, a recent addition to Kesher Talk's list of Jewish bloggers, figure out another nagging question: "At least this clears up one mystery--why President Bush wasn't in the World Trade Center when it collapsed. He was one of the 4,000 Jews who were tipped off!"
UPDATE: Jack Rich, again thanks to CNN, found sentiments similar to the Kenyans' in man-at-the-shopping-mall interviews in
Qatar.
Israel, the violator: The December edition of Harper's Index leads with something juicy. "Rank of Israel and Turkey among nations in violation of the largest number of U.N. Security Council resolutions: 1, 2"
Smarter Harpers Index helpfully points out why this reflects badly on the UN, not Israel.
Happy birthday Kesher Talk! This is a great forum you have going Howard and it's clear you have some amazing contributors.
I don't know if this counts as a discussion topic but i want to share something with all of you that one of my students pointed out on his/her course evaluation of my sociology of religion class. Do you folks ever spend time thinking about Judaism (or any religion) being right/correct/accurate? I mean we can all assume that we have made the decision that Judaism is best for us (whatever that means), but do you ever contemplate if religion is accurate? As a sociologist, I don't wrestle with this question a whole lot. I know what works for me as a person and I do my best to accept that other people may have something else that works for them (even the very different ways I am learning that people "experience" Judaism). My point is that I think this one student was really frustrated with my class becuase I never said whether or not any religion was right or wrong or accurate. Than I was wondering if most people even contemplate this question. There's this huge theory that some people apply to religion called rational-choice. It assumes that people make very calculated rational decisions based on the costs and benefits of belonging to a particular religion or even joining an indivudal congregation. Personally, this doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. I don't think religion is an overly "rational" decision that most people contemplate and analyze. What do you folks think about this?
Mazel Tov!Kesher Talk celebrates its
One Year Anniversary
todayWho could have known we would come so far? On behalf of Judith, Rachel, Rami and Jonathan, I'd like to thank all of our readers for sticking with us through this first year.
Kesher Talk started small - it was just me. But the enterprise slowly grew, with the addition of Rami Genauer, the Orthodox guy and Forward reporter. Then came Jon Distler, who (infrequently) blessed Kesher Talk with his
controversial views on
Jewish dating. Soon thereafter, Judith Weiss, a regular in the comment boxes, made the transition to Kesher Talk contributor - she's usually the only poster on the weekends, and her lengthy missives on Judaism, Islam and politics interest my wife more than my own posts! Finally, Rachel Kraus piped in on some esoteric questions of Jewish theology and sociology - her postings are few since she is busy finishing her PhD thesis.
This year had its ups and downs. I spent most of it preparing for my October 12 wedding in Buffalo, sharing some of my peculiar findings along the way about
sex through bedsheets. But on the downside, Judith suffered the
loss of her uncle in the fall.
I will try to list a "Best of" sometime soon, but in the meantime, please see the
Subject index (available anytime through the pull-down menu in the left-hand margin), currently updated through November 8th.
Perhaps you were wondering what went on a year ago today? See the
archive and work your way up... Kesher Talk covered such fascinating ground as "The Last Two Jews in Kabul"; a Wall Street analyst's racial/ethnic profiling proposal; Germany's Jewish population's troubles with non-Jewish immigrants; the matrimonial benefits of Hannukah; Hannukah's relevance to our modern world; the restoration of a Chinese synagogue; a Canadian cabinet member's assinine commentary; a primer on environmental stewardship; and the first mention of Cynthia McKinney! What a glorious day it was...
The. Thread. That. Refused. To. Die. I keep checking back with a sick fascination, and it
keeps growing, which is partly my fault, since I keep posting. I was actually
#500 (which is partial redress for all the concert tickets I never won because I wasn't the fifth caller). More than you ever wanted to know about kashrut, brit, lgf flirting protocol, and Jewish theology of the afterlife. Someone wished for me that I should also be #613. I don't think so - I'm on a dial-up connection.
UPDATE:
The. Thread. That. Ate. LGF. Bwwwaaahaaaa. It went to 620 comments and then
crashed Charles' server. I was not #613 - The thread had rolled too far down the home page for me to care anymore. But Charles was happy to give us more rope, so we are
still at it - 122 comments as of very late Wednesday night. The topic is still kosher food. Mostly. I'm trolling for hits like I usually do.
I think this thread is still alive because kashrut is a symbol for the tension between loyalty to ancient tribal customs and assimilation into global pop culture. This is not a problem to be solved, but a dialectic to be lived. It is very uncomfortable for people with great need for certainty and clear boundaries. It is also uncomfortable for people who dislike any assertion of boundaries or eternal verities. We are all acutely aware of this dialectic right now because Islamism is jamming the needle against one side of the meter and in everyone else's face about it, so we welcome a chance to air our anxieties about how much distinction and difference we can stand.
NYC lgf outing #2. The eminence gris of the
New York lgf contingent (who posts under the name Free Radical) has a gift of picking up interesting people. He goes to some libertarian party that
Asparagirl had emailed everyone on the list about (it was the night of the snowstorm and I wimped out), never manages to meet Asparagirl but strikes up a conversation with a young libertarian from
Azerbaijan who is currently an intern with the
Foundation for Economic Education, and will move to DC in Jan to intern at the
Cato Institute. Tural is nominally Muslim but grew up non-religious under the Soviet Union.
FR invites him along to our 2nd lgf dinner at a
kosher Indian restaurant on Sunday evening, also attended by FR's college-age daughter, her best friend, Davesax (a bit pale and puffy with a winter cold), yours truly, Amy, Someone, and several other lgf readers. Greatly missed from the first dinner are Bigbad, Throbert, and Velvet Elvis (not to mention our
ambassador from Melbourne, Australia, who has since returned to the antipodes after
many adventures).
We ask Tural how he became a libertarian and he says he started with
The Law by Frederick Bastiat and went on to Henry Hazlitt and Ludwig von Mises. The classics. We ask him about
Jews and Islam in Azerbaijan. Most of
the Jews, who
lived peacefully alongside their Muslim neighbors, moved to Israel after its founding. They were well-regarded, thought of as smart but stingy (amazing how that stereotype won't die, considering how much
philanthropy Jews perform
all over the
globe).
About halfway through dinner a young guy in a kippa and jeans with 7yr old daughter in tow stops by. He and FR are both on a
Bob Dylan listserv, FR with his usual fearless hospitality has invited him to the dinner, and they are meeting for the first time. He is part of the
newly revived lower East Side Orthodox community which is restoring and repopulating the old historic shuls of the neighborhood. neither he nor Tural have ever heard of lgf, and we all take turns explaining what a blog is and why
this one has inspired us to get together.
Great wine, food, and conversation flow for several hours, after which some of us pile into FR's car (a car! In Manhattan!) and tool down to Tribeca to a
concert at the Knitting Factory to commemorate two victims of the
Hebrew U bombing, Marla Bennett and
Ben Blutstein, who had been studying at
Pardes, a wonderful interdenominational co-ed yeshiva in Jerusalem (more about the meaning of
"pardes" in Jewish tradition), to become day-school teachers who would transmit the learning and love of Judaism to the next generation. Fittingly, the concert is both a memorial and a benefit to raise money for two scholarships to Pardes to "replace" two gifted young shaliachs of Judaism who can never be replaced.
The concert is sold out and the
Knit is crowded and hot. Amy and her friend Barbara settle themselves upstairs while FR, offspring, and I disappear into the dark downstairs crowd of dreads, beards, princess frizz dos, jcrew peasant blouses, wool watch caps, street vendor Indian jewelry, knit kippas, parkas and knee boots. I recognize a few
Hadar and
T&V regulars, the
StorahTelling impresario, and the junior rabbi from
BJ. Ben and Marla are remembered to us by a stack of beautiful full-color pamphlets in the lounge, containing
their own writings and
remembrances by their friends and teachers, and by moving
hespeds from a classmate and from the Rosh Yeshiva of Pardes,
Rav Daniel Landes, both of whom have flown in from Israel for the concert. Several of Marla's and Ben's relatives are also here from San Diego, CA and Harrisburg, PA, but do not speak.
We are entertained for several hours by (in order of appearance) a nameless reggae-flavored band from promoter Aaron Bisman's label
JDub Records, a cute little Jewish baby-dyke rapper with backwards cap and baggy t-shirt, Jewish worldbeat virtuosos
Pharoah's Daughter (
Basya obsesses about the soundcheck and the fact that everyone keeps yakking through her set), and haimish
Klezmatics founder and jazz trumpeter
Frank London's Hasidic New Wave with Yakar Rythmns, a Senegalese drum troupe. In other words, a typical evening at the Knit; posters remind us that
Jewsapalooza starts in 2 weeks. We leave halfway through HNW's set - progressive jazz wears quickly on us uptown and Jersey squares who have to go to work on Monday.
UPDATE:
Charles gave me a link - thanks, Charles! Then some trolls infested the comment section and
I got a bit pissed. I didn't know Ben or Marla and only within the past few months have I met anyone who knew them. Most of the Pardes crowd is young and I'm not (although I have been told I'm "young at heart" - I prefer to think of myself as a lively thinking curious mature adult; "young" people don't have a monopoly on those qualities). But when I read their writings and those of their friends, I wish I had known them and I miss them. Their lives stand for something very different from the snide dismissive contempt and hysterical invective that
often infects the supposedly "anti-idiotarian" blogosphere.
"Certified Kosher" oysters?! Well, that was how Leroy "Lee Lee" Chauvin advertized his oysters. And this is not like the "kosher shrimp" you can find which has a distincly fishy taste to it (bc/ it is made out of pollock).
Apparently, Leroy cleaned them thoroughly and thought that was
all it took. Ah, if it were only so... If cleanliness was all it took to make food kosher, even my father might consider keeping kashrut...
Missiles to Israel's north: Syria has been trucking Iranian missiles into Lebanon to the forces of Hezbullah. Craig Hines of the
Houston Chronicle (Dec. 3) says Israel might have to
pre-empt the problem.
The real question is, what effect would that have on the Iraq war - especially given that Sadamm and Al Qaeda would love to have Israel involved...
New Jewish bloggers on the link list: I recently added two Israeli blogers to my Jewish blogger list:
The View From Here and
Brian Blum. Check them out.
In honor of the gift-giving season . . . . Hanukkah is over, but our gentile friends might enjoy some of
these gifts. Saddam Says. This board game for the whole family pits UN inspectors frantically searching for nuclear facilities in Iraq against the country’s leader, who must give daily clues — “You’re getting warmer,” “you’re getting colder” — regarding their progress. Players wear either thick black mustaches (as Iraqi officials) or short pants and high socks (the UN party). Hurry though, this game is only available for the next few weeks and all sales are final. . . .
Scribble. A new variation of the classic word game, this one has players competing as journalists covering the Mideast conflict, making up stories as they go along by connecting key words and phrases like “brutal occupation” and “militant settlers” to the game’s core letters, I-S-R-A-E and L. Extra points for describing Palestinian suicide bombers without using the word “terrorist.” As advertised in The New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and other dailies.
Those of us who get exasperated with our fellow Jews on a regular basis will get a chuckle out of the others, such as:
‘Your Mother Can’t Boil Water.’ A verbal insult game that is sweeping the country, this one invites Jews of all denominations to rank out their fellow co-religionists, with extra points given for historical knowledge, originality and mean-spiritedness. Taking a chapter from the controversial runaway best-seller, “Who Sez You’re A Jew?” written jointly by a chasidic rabbi and a leader of the Seventh-Day Atheist movement, this game encourages players to cast aspersions on an opponent’s lineage and demand a Strip Search to determine the veracity of his Jewishness. Adults only. Not available in certain areas of Brooklyn or Lakewood.
