Kesher Talk: 06/15/2003

Saturday, June 21, 2003

Ch-ch-ch-changes While I wasn't looking, Blogger Pro ported me over to the latest revision. (KT has not joined the MT stampede because we are on a dedicated domain and using Blogger Pro, so we have not had the Blogspot problems that have plagued so many.)

And it looks different on Netscape 7.0 and IE 5.2.3. Interesting.

And on IE 5.2.3 I can't access any future or draft posts, but on Netscape I can. Well, Netscape/Mozilla handles bookmarks much better than IE, but I can jump to the top and bottom of a page in IE and it scrolls faster. I guess I'll just keep 2 browsers open all the time.

Clue to Apple: Let me know when Safari will both import and export bookmarks and I'll consider using it. Clue to OmniWeb: Import and export, ok?

UPDATE: Why is Blogger's search engine so pathetic? You want to know how I look up old posts of mine? On Google. (Maybe it's pathetic because Google owns Blogger, so they obviously think it's a joke they should provide an internal search engine at all. Is that it? Ooooohh. I wish I lived in Mountain View - I would give you folks a piece of my mind.)

Liberte, Fraternite, Terrorisme. Hamas leader Ismail Abu Haniya said said a bunch of stuff today, including this:

Haniya hailed the role played by France and asked France to continue playing this role in face of the extreme British pressures towards Hamas.

Some differences have surfaced between the British foreign minister Jack Straw and his French counterpart Dominique Du Villeban during EU’s foreign ministers’ deliberations, as Straw called for declaring Hamas a terrorist organization, while Du Villeban strongly opposed him saying, “We should never halt dialogue with Hamas.”

(via LGF comments)

Friday, June 20, 2003

Mary Robinson avoids opportunity to do t'shuvah. Balloon Juice catches up with the feckless Mary Robinson, who is now scolding the world about anti-semitism. (As one commenter put it: "Mary Robinson would lecture you on how to wipe you're arse if given half a chance. Her hectoring, droning nanny knows best tone had me reaching for the button during seven long years as Irish president.")

BJ's post is aptly titled "Irony Alert" - Mary Robinson repeatedly ignored and avoided confronting blatant expressions of anti-semitism on her watch as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. I notice that nowhere in her IHT editorial does she acknowledge her own part in contributing to the resurgence of anti-semitism by being a coward: a "good German" who kept silent when she had an explicit responsibility to be a leader.

If she had any guts, she could turn this editorial into a powerful testimony by describing how and why she was intimidated by the Muslim contingent of the conference, and the lessons she has since learned. She could describe how her remorse fuels her desire to right this wrong. But I doubt she has admitted to herself how badly she handled the conference; if she does feel any remorse, she is apparently not willing to be public about it. So her editorial comes off as just one more dutiful recitation of facts and figures. What a shame.

Mike Sultan on Arab funding for terrorism: According to the Wall Street Journal, at a summit with President Bush, Arab leaders pledged to stop giving cash to terrorist organizations ...

They said, from now on, it'll be strictly checks or money orders ...

Thursday, June 19, 2003

AZADI, ARAK, ESHGH! It's called a blog burst, Andrew, and to my knowledge the first blogger to organize one was Joe Katzman, who is offering to coordinate this one. But I'm glad Andrew discovered it and it's a great idea. Let's flood the zone with posts about the Iranian struggle for democracy, whisky, sexy.

UPDATE: The folks at Winds of Change are doing their part with a huge collection of links about the ongoing student-led rebellion in Iran (plus a cute banner you can put on your website, with what is turning out to be the bloggers' slogan for the Iranian campaign - not sure what the Iranians themselves think of it). Half of these links are to Iranian blogs, so you can read for yourself what Iranians think and want for their country.

Jeff Jarvis, who has been following the Iranian rebellion for weeks, also has a large collection of links. In this post in particular Jeff is giving air time to a number of Iranian bloggers who have nothing good to say about the MKO (the group whose members publicly immolated themselves this week to protest the regime in Iran).

Every once in a while the Guardian redeems itself, here with a defense of Jewish and Muslim ritual slaughter. As the author points out:

The coup de grace, however it is delivered, is a small part of the total ordeal we put animals through in the process of turning them into meat. FAWC's proposal is intended to mitigate this ordeal. It is a modest goal - far too modest to account for the ferocity with which Muslim and Jewish methods are attacked whenever this controversy flares up. So what is the outcry really about?

The answer lies in the very terms in which the issue is framed (though not by FAWC itself): "humane" versus "ritual" slaughter. . . . By definition, "humane" means kind and caring. So "ritual", being the opposite, implies cruel and callous. The phrase "ritual slaughter" conjures up a remote past dipped in the blood of primitive religion . . . . Hence the lurid canards about animals being left to "slowly bleed to death", as if every ounce of pain were being wrung from their tortured bodies, and as if their more fortunate confrères, the ones who are "humanely" killed, are gently put to sleep.

The striking thing about this polemic is its persistence. From the late 19th century onwards, "ritual slaughter" has been a foil, even when the so-called humane method meant smashing animals over the head with a pole-axe. This suggests that something less innocent than the love of animals is at work. Furthermore, the same stock phrases keep recurring, like a constant drumbeat, as if the protest were itself a kind of ritual.

Funny thing about that. But it's not, you know, anti-semitism or anything.

(via Apostablog)

A joke. My friend Sonia sends me this:

Dan Rather, Jesse Jackson, Cokie Roberts from National Public Radio and an Israeli soldier were hiking through the jungle one day when they were captured by cannibals. They were tied up, led to the village and brought before the chief.

The chief said, "I am familiar with your western custom of granting the condemned a last wish. Before we kill and eat you, do you have any last requests?"

Dan Rather said, "Well, I'm a Texan; so I'd like one last bowlful of hot, spicy chili." The chief nodded to an underling, who left and returned with the chili. Rather ate it all and said, "Now I can die content."

Jesse Jackson said, "You know, the thing in this life I am proudest of is my work on behalf of the poor and oppressed. So before I go, I want to sing "We Shall Overcome" one last time." The chief said, "Go right ahead, we're listening." Jackson sang the song, and then said, "Now I can die in peace."

Cokie Roberts said, "I'm a reporter to the end. I want to take out my tape recorder and describe the scene here and what's about to happen. Maybe someday someone will hear it and know that I was on the job til the end." The chief directed an aide to hand over the tape recorder, and Roberts dictated some comments. She then said, "Now I can die happy."

The chief said, "And, Mr. Israeli soldier, what is your final wish?"

"Kick me in the ass." said the Israeli.

"What?" said the chief. "Will you mock us in your last hour?"

"No, I'm not kidding. I want you to kick me in the ass." insisted the Israeli.

So the chief untied the soldier, shoved him into the open, and kicked him in the ass. The Israeli went sprawling, but rolled to his knees, pulled a 9mm pistol from his waistband, and shot the chief dead. In the resulting confusion, he leapt to his knapsack, pulled out his uzi, and sprayed the cannibals with gunfire. In a flash, the cannibals were all dead or fleeing for their lives.

As the Israeli was untying the others, they each asked him, "Why didn't you just shoot them? Why did you ask them to kick you in the ass?"

"What!?" said the Israeli, "And have you bastards call ME the aggressor?!?"

I have no doubt that once these four got back to civilization, the UN would produce a resolution condemning the Israeli action as unprovoked racist Zionist aggression.

Jews in odd places: Austria: Staff are being laid off from the "Jewish Community", an Austrian Jewish organization, and Austrian Jews are blaming the government for not giving them more support.

In a statement, Ariel Muzicant, the president of Austria's Vienna-based Jewish Community, said the measures would be necessary because the government had "taken no measures to ensure the existence of the Jewish communities in Austria."

Well, boo hoo hoo!

So far the community has been getting government subsidies of $911,000, which is 6.75 percent of its annual budget of $13.22 million.

"We have asked for an additional $3 million, and, what we have been seeking for the last 58 years, the restitution of the community's property" seized by the Nazis when they annexed Austria before World War II.

Even after all these decades, is it still Austria's responsibility to give money to anything just because it is Jewish? What nonsense!?!

Then the government offered to set aside an annual $906,000 in loans for three years. But the Jewish Community would have none of that -- all or nothing:

Ariel Muzicant, the president of the Jewish Community, said in a statement that the federal government's action was inadequate.

"It is high time that the Republic of Austria assumes finally its historical responsibility and makes the requisite steps. The government's (loan) offer sidesteps the actual problem," Muzicant said adding that "the government is trying again to shun responsibility."

He said an increase in subsidies was needed "in order to guarantee Jewish life in Vienna, as well as a just restitution or compensation for ... community property" robbed by the Nazis.

Wednesday, June 18, 2003

Shepping naches. I just picked up the June issue of the Blueprint, a free calendar listing tabloid mostly for young adult Jews in Manhattan (although they list events of interest to us creakey geezers as well). And what do I see but a column on Jewish blogs (it had to happen, right?) and what do I see heading up the list of recommended blogs but Kesher Talk.

The article, which not on their website, says:

Kesher Talk ranks among the "greatest hits" of Jewish blogs. Editor-in-Chief Judith Weiss and her team of contributors update the blog frequently with posts on a wide range of Jewish issues, indluing those that are frequently covered by other bloggers, such as anti-semitism and Israel, plus topics less frequently addressed, such as the Kabbalah. All Jewish blogs seem to lead here.

What can I say? I'm kvelling. The very next blog he mentions is Little Green Footballs.

. . . a blog that most followers affectionately refer to as LGF. Thousands respond to the polls; dozens oftern respond to various postings. They keep tabs on what Islamic militants (and everyone else) are saying about the Jews.

That's refreshing: a review of LGF that doesn't call it racist or inciteful to hate crimes.

The other blogs reviewed are Hasidic Rebel, Klezmer Shack, JewSchool, and Marduk's Babylonian Musings. Next month he will review Israeli blogs.

Evolution of a liberal or how the Left wins hearts and minds. Not.

Jews in odd places: Malta: The small island of Malta has only 100 Jews:

The community is small, but we all get on well together. We all work together, whether we are orthodox, conservative or reform Jews.

We meet twice a month, every first and third Saturday, for Sabbath services. We also celebrate the feasts and festivals, like New Year, Yom Kippur, Tabernacles... So we leave nothing out of the religious calendar.

The community is comprised of people of many nationalities - some from Portugal, Israel, others from Greece, Italy, Tunisia, France, The Netherlands etc.

We do not have a Rabbi because we do not have enough funds to pay for him. Every job is carried out by volunteers. However, we do have a “Chazan”, Reuben Oyahon, a lay leader who chants the prayers.

Tuesday, June 17, 2003

Dominique keeps digging. Not content with advocating for Hamas as "interlocutors" in the Middle East negotiations, Dominique de Villepin - er, Galouzeau - proceeds to make a total fool of himself in the pages of Ha'aretz. The condescension and obtuseness in this breathtakingly slimy op-ed has to be read to be believed. This guy is a walking diplomatic train-wreck.

I was trying to figure out which sentences to excerpt, but its awfulness is all of a piece. You should probably read it in the bathroom in case you get the overwhelming urge to hurl.

PS And BTW it's Valery Giscard.

Glenn, does this qualify as "a pack, not a herd"? I don't know where these folks are going to be at 7:26 PM tonight, but I plan to be at the free Yiddish music festival in Damrosch Park. And they'd better not block my view. (via Electrolite)

Jews in odd places: Uruguay: But not for long. Sergio Goldstein, Israel's immigration minister, points out: “We had 550 olim in 2002 alone,” using the Hebrew word for immigrants.

For a country with a Jewish population even less than the official number of 20,000, according to Goldstein, the number of olim is high.

“Proportionally, it is as if more than 5,000 American Jews picked up their lives and made aliyah in a given year,” said Goldstein, who came from Israel to take up his post in November 2001.

Before 1999, when the current recession began, approximately 80 Uruguayan Jews had been moving to Israel per year for at least a decade.

But as the economy dipped, strains on the country’s primarily middle-class Jewish population increased. One hundred and twelve relocated to Israel in 1999, 89 in 2000 and 170 in 2001.

Last year’s surge, however, came as a result of the December 2001 economic and political crash in Argentina, Uruguay’s primary business partner.

Overall, an estimated 40,000 of Uruguay’s 3.3 million people emigrated last year for economic reasons.

Monday, June 16, 2003

Ancient Jewish blogs. So how do you say "blog" in Aramaic? Never mind. If you are interested in ancient Jewish history in the Middle East, or if you get sneeringly dismissed as "waving the Bible around" when you bring up ancient Jewish history, (scroll down) you will want to bookmark these blogs:

Paleo-Judaica is "a weblog on ancient Judaism and its context," by a Lecturer in Early Jewish Studies at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.

Mystical Politics is about "Jewish mysticism, especially from the ancient world (biblical, Qumran, Hekhalot, rabbinic, etc.) and of contemporary politics -- and of the occasional interactions between them," by the Assistant Professor of Jewish Studies at Ithaca College.

The "roadmap" may be a better solution than you think: Saul Singer takes a truly different perspective on Bush's "roadmap to peace" and Sharon's acceptance of it-- that it may help move the Israeli-Palestinian situation at least half-way to peace and that is better than the status quo:

The deal Sharon is offering the Palestinians is a partial state in exchange for a partial peace. You don't want to renounce the "right of return" and accept Israel as a Jewish state? Fine, says Sharon, but for that all you get is a truncated state whose borders are controlled by Israel. Why would the Palestinians accept such a deal? Because they know that the only alternatives are the status quo, in which both sides bleed indefinitely, or making a full peace, neither of which they want.

Sharon's real objective is to get to the middle phase of the roadmap and park there until the Arab world is ready for peace, which may or may not ever happen. It is a reasonably comfortable place for a gradualist to be. Palestine may choose to be belligerent, but Israel will have a provisional border to defend and a state to hold accountable.

However, the risks are still quite high:

The risk of this plan is that statehood will be no more of a firewall against pressure to fulfill Palestinian demands than all the other agreements that the Palestinians sign and the world ignores. Eventually, the Palestinians will use terror again to force their next objective: a full Israeli unilateral withdrawal, without having to concede the demand of "return" to Israel.

The protections against this dangerous scenario are Israeli will and the trust of the United States. Sharon feels that he and Bush can be trusted to ensure that the dates in the roadmap do not mean that Israel will be forced to fill out Palestine's borders even if it turns out to be a terrorist state. Whether future Israeli and American leaders can be so trusted is another question. ...

Cool Stuff. The Hello Kitty Tarot. (via the intimidatingly erudite Naomi Chana)

Richard Thompson for Completists. I'm not geeky enough to be a completist about anything, and I think RT's quality dropped off after the split with Linda (I'm an old fogey - what can I say?), but this site will keep you abreast of concert tours, rare import B-sides, and all that stuff aficionadoes like to keep track of. (Via Electrolite - who else?)

An expat Afgani returns home, writing and taking photos and videos.

Gary links to an interesting online test of your "moral intuition." The British Philosophers' Magazine Online has more games and tests for your edification and enjoyment.

I previously linked to this wonderful gallery of QTVR panoramas, many of historic sites around the world (like Angkor Wat and the summit of Mt. Everest). (also via Gary) Well, one of the panoramas is of the inside of someone's mouth.

AIPAC tries to reach out to the Black left: The kooky black newspaper The Final Call reports that "the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is making special overtures toward influential Black leaders, including the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC)."

As part of its annual Washington convention activities, AIPAC "honored" CBC chair Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) and the rest of the Caucus at a special dinner March 30, attended by roughly 1,000 AIPAC donors from around the country," JTA Global News Service of the Jewish People reported May 13.

Then, on April 24 in New York, hip hop music producer Russell Simmons attended a luncheon with AIPAC Executive Director Howard Kohr and other Jewish leaders.

The various meetings grew out of Black concerns about the Jewish community’s roles in the 2002 primary election defeats of Reps. Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga.) and Earl Hilliard (D-Ala.), both of whom were vocal critics of U.S. policies favoring Israel before they were defeated by candidates who received strong financial backing from AIPAC members living outside of the contested districts.

See Kesher Talk's Subject Index for more on those two episodes (filed under "Defeating Anti-Israelis in Congress").

Jews in odd places: Serbia: Assimilation and mixed marriages are the norm in a country with a Jewish population of just 3,200. And families just don't have the know how to pass on Jewish traditions and beliefs properly. JTA shows how teenagers are doing the heavy lifting to carry on Serbian Judaism.

At the same time, one of Belgrade's most popular plays, "Visiting Mr. Green,” is about the relationship between a secular Jew rising to TV stardom and an elderly observant Jew. And the seats in the theatre are filled primarily by goyim.

Sunday, June 15, 2003

How to subdue terrorists. Many are saying that the Palestinians need their own Altalena. This obscure incident in the Israeli struggle for independence really points up the difference between the Palestinian and Israeli leadership, and is especially relevant to Abu Mazen's task today. (It is heartening that this op-ed appeared in the NYTimes.)

Uri Avnery critiques the Altalena critique in an article which has been widely reprinted. I think this is a typical example of exempting the Palestinian leadership from having to live up to any expectations ("We have to give them everything before they'll be able to do anything!"), but you decide.

UPDATE: This topic started a lively discussion on LGF.

UPDATE: Lynn B responds with more links, especially a critique of the NYTimes op-ed. Tobin seems to think that the Altalena Affair isn't a useful example to hold up to the Palestinians because the historical analogy isn't exact. But whether the hero of the story is Ben Gurion or Begin, the gist of the story remains the same: "We were able to act with the long-range goals of the Jewish State in mind, and there will not be significant progress in the current conflict until you can do the same." To me it is still a useful didactic device. But you decide. (PS Lynn also has some edifying links about the Deir Yassin "massacre.")

UPDATE II: Donald Sensing also takes a swing at the Altalena analogy.

UPDATE III: Looks like this is the meme of the week over here at the politico-journo blogosphere. Armed Liberal independently comes to the same conclusions via the theories of Max Weber, and buttresses my argument: The point of the analogy is not whether Begin was really a terrorist or Ben Gurion needlessly shot down fellow Jewish freedom fighters. The point is that Ben Gurion realized that to be a credible state in the eyes of the world, and to be a functioning state for its people, he had to enforce Medinat Yisrael's monopoly on the use of force. The Altalena incident was an good an opportunity as any - it served the purpose. It remains an example to the Palestinians of the kind of difficult ambiguous choices that have to be made to forge a state.

Blog round-up. A politically incorrect joke from BigWig.

Wow! Full screen QTVRs of the archeological site of Petra in Jordan, Mt. Everest, and Times Square. And 80 more from all over the world. Where does Gary find this stuff?

Autopsy Report is just that: the blog of an intern in the Medical Examiner's office. It's gruesome, depressing, macabre, and fascinating. (I never knew there was such a thing as a "rabbinic autopsy." (via Jeff Jarvis)

More than you ever thought you wanted to know about saying "Merry Christmas" in Yiddish. (via Heeb) Or you could say "Have a merry little Nitl."

Bookmark this page. The Anti-Defamation League maintains a page debunking internet rumors about Jews and Israel. When something passes across your inbox, check it out here before you pass it on.

Did you know there was a rumor that the Windows OS Wingdings font contained hidden anti-Semitic messages? Somehow I missed that one . . . .

Weblogs in business. My friend Adina, who is in the blog business (the industry jargon is "social software") reports from the JupiterMedia conference on "Weblog business strategies." Start here and scroll down - so far she's got 11 posts on the topic.

Do people in our journalist/political advocacy end of the blogosphere know that large organizations are using blogs for internal communication?

I'm at Verizon currently in IT but working to deploy a WiFi network in Manhattan. I was looking for the intersection between IT and community. I knew I needed to leverage the rest of the IT community in order to get a summary every day. I started to use Traction software to see the community of people who would inform me of what’s going on. . . .

The problem with cc lists is that you have to decide if the email is spam or if you've hit the right audience. I needed to find a way in which I would be fully informed but I didn't have to decide who to inform. Another problem with email is that it's gone. I didn't want to have to go into everyone's email to see what had been read or not. I also needed the right technical people to highlight what I thought was important and what they thought I needed to see. I looked at a number of tools, and Traction seemed to do what I needed to do. I needed to fit it into the workflow. Everyone lives out of their email in box. You can host server side, but you can notify people. When they're notified it's a digest. I started to seed it, and I knew from previous email threads who was always active. There's always a core, chatting. I sat them down and showed them how to use the tool. I also made sure I had upper management involved.

Looks like Jeff Jarvis was there too.

UPDATE: Glenn links to this report from the same conference in the Boston Globe.

Americans think anti-semitism is a problem? ADL must be chicken-littleing to the right people: A recent CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll finds that while very few Americans believe that anti-Semitism is a very serious problem in the United States today, a majority says it is at least somewhat of a problem. Most Americans believe that Jews in the United States have access to influential positions within this country, but one-third do not. Nine in 10 Americans say they would vote for a Jewish candidate for president, and most do not believe that having a Jewish president would present any problems for U.S. foreign policy.

The poll, conducted May 30-June 1, finds 57% of Americans saying that anti-Semitism is at least somewhat of a problem, including 9% who say it is a "very serious" problem. Roughly four in 10 Americans believe it is not much of a problem (30%) or not a problem at all (9%).

Kesher Talk

Saturday, June 21, 2003

Friday, June 20, 2003

Thursday, June 19, 2003

Wednesday, June 18, 2003

Tuesday, June 17, 2003

Monday, June 16, 2003

Sunday, June 15, 2003

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