Kesher Talk: 01/18/2004

The great chicken soup cookoff: On January 8 the National Jewish Outreach Program announced its Chicken Soup Challenge, a national contest to find the best chicken soup in America (beside your mother's) in an effort to promote the organization's 8th annual Shabbat Across America event on March 12. Amateur cooks across the country are invited to send in their family recipes. The top five will be selected for the contest's final cook-off in February, and the winner will receive a trip for two to Israel.

Enter the contest now!

Don't you have to be Jewish to have a bar/bat mitzvah? Apparently not, according to The Wall Street Journal (Jan. 14, 2004) (also reprinted here, if you're too cheap to subscribe):

After going to a dozen bar mitzvahs and bat mitzvahs last year, Laura Jean Stargardt told her parents she wanted one of her own. She said she found the singing inspiring and offered to learn Hebrew. She also said she wanted a big party.

Her parents thought the request was unusual since the family is Methodist. But they co-hosted a lavish party for her and two of her friends last month that looked like a bat mitzvah, without the religion. They booked a country club in Dallas and a disk jockey, invited 125 friends, and hired a professional dancer that Laura had seen at her friends' bar mitzvah parties.

"I wanted to be Jewish so I could have a bat mitzvah," says Laura. "Having the party fulfilled that."

A number of kids about to turn 13 who aren't Jewish are bugging their parents for parties that resemble those held following bar mitzvah ceremonies. In some affluent communities, parents line up the same entertainment and book the same party places. If they don't dance the traditional Jewish hora, they at least manage a tarantella or an Irish jig. ...

... The parties can be upsetting to Jews who say they mock an important spiritual rite of passage. Others call the trend a welcome example of Jewish traditions becoming part of popular culture. "It shows how much the Jewish people and Jewish customs have become mainstream," says Rabbi Mark S. Diamond, executive vice president of the Board of Rabbis of Southern California.

Jews in odd places: Hong Kong: Jonathan Kesselman, maker of the Comedy Central film "The Hebrew Hammer," recently traveled to visit the Jews in Hong Kong for their annual Jewish film festival.

(Link suggested by Rick Richman, whose Jewish Current Issues blog was recently added to our link list).

Because we make brachot for everything. A rabbi in Tzfat has put together a prayer to cleanse us from Internet porn.

Being a sex-positive sort, myself, I can't help thinking he's going about this the wrong way. Someone should write a blessing for G-d Who Creates Sexuality In All Its Forms, Up To And Including Online Erotica. Anyone?

Interfaith dialogue Dept. Some Cardinals from the Vatican hang out with yeshiva bochers at YU, courtesy of the Jewish-born Roman Catholic archbishop of Paris, Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger. (Apostates usually go to the opposite extreme, promulgating hatred for their former people. Lustiger is a refreshing relief.)

UPDATE: More here on the Cardinals' visit.

UPDATE: More here and here on the YU visit part of the conference of cardinals and rabbis. More backgound on Cardinal Lustiger - he

was born a Jew and converted to Catholicism at age 14, just after the war. . . . Cardinal Lustiger’s mother was one of thousands of French Jews deported to German concentration camps. She was murdered at Auschwitz. Cardinal Lustiger, who apparently still considers himself Jewish in some respects, goes to the death camp each year to recite the memorial prayer Kaddish and has signed letters to Jews with his Hebrew name. At lunch on the first day of the conference, Cardinal Lustiger bantered in Yiddish with Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, the noted Lubavitch writer and teacher of chasidic philosophy and translator of the Talmud.

Enough is enough, Part III. The "I Know Art When I See It" Affair continues to produce more culture jamming. Elizabeth reports:

An Israeli artist went to the plaza outside the museum today and brought a small white fiberglass tub, filled it with red water and floating dismembered doll limbs and put a teddy bear on the rim of the tub holding a Swedish flag.

It was GREAT! Of course the press were all over it with their cameras. The irony was great and the statement was so graphic it put the other exhibit in the shade. (The BBC had the footage of the Ambassador walking around the pool unplugging the lights first).

I don't know who this young artist was but BRAVO! He didn't say a thing; just went about his business setting up the exhibit and when he was finished, there were these childlike doll limbs floating in the red water. Really graphic!

And

I saw the Israeli doing his exhibit on a BBCWorld Report . . . at the tail end of a story about the Ambassador having a meeting with the Swedish somebody or other (a woman). He and she came out after their meeting (not at the museum) and were making 'nice' on the steps of the government building. Then BBCWorld went to the exhibit, showed the film of the ambassador unplugging the lights as he walked round the big pool [scroll down to "Se attacken mot konstverket"] and finally they showed this young Israeli today out in the cold on the plaza in front of the museum with his bathtub sized or sink-sized white pool which he then filled with red water. The camera panned the press and there were hordes of guys with cameras so someone should have even a 'still' of the exhibit.

More here.

A phone interview with Ambassador Mazel and artist Dror Feiler, who comes across as a whiny asshole.

Meanwhile, the Israeli embassy's landlord wants the embassy to move out, and the artists and curator are getting anonymous threats, and the curator is having a nervous breakdown.

You can't make this stuff up.

UPDATE: The poster for the exhibit. All over Stockholm.

More good news from Israel: First Bedouin Border Policewoman: Amira al-Hib was sworn in last week as Israel's first Bedouin border policewoman. She comes from a family in northern Israel with many sons in the security services. "An Arabic-speaking border policewoman in contact with Palestinian women at checkpoints could prevent many misunderstandings," said the commander of the Border Police training base, Brig.-Gen. Gabi Orgil. (Maariv, 16Jan04)

Good news from Israel: Taking their fast-growing ties a step further, India and Israel signed a statement on co-operation in science and technology on December 23. Following talks between minister of state for science and technology Bachi Singh Rawat and his Israeli counterpart Eleizer Sandberg, several areas of co-operation were identified, including joint development and upgradation of science and technology projects as well as joint projects in space.

The two parties also signed a

memorandum of understanding (MoU) on the Tauvex project.

The Tauvex is a set of three wide-field telescopes that will image the ultraviolet (UV) sky on an Indian satellite, the GSAT-4. The specific objective of the mission is to collate data on the universe through UV, not available with other kinds of satellites such as the Hubble, and offers a unique opportunity to put Indian and Israeli scientists in the forefront of space-astrophysics.

The Tauvex-GSAT project was initiated two years ago after the original project, an international programme based on a Russian scientific satellite (Spectrum Roentgen Gamma) fell through. After meeting with Indian scientists in Vienna two years ago and discovering that they had common interests, the decision for space collaboration was formalised during Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s visit to India in September.

Out of a total budget of $40 million for the Tauvex project, Israel has invested around $4 million to change the interface of the satellite to make it compatible with Indian technology; it will be ready for launch in 18 months.

Bookmark these. A fact-checking site, - like Snopes, only just for US politics. It's a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at U Penn. Good to bookmark for the next 6 months as the election campaigns heat up.

The Command Post is also running continuous campaign coverage, like they did during the Iraq war. i.e. linking to as many news stories about the topic as possible, with separate pages for chat and editorial comments.

Baghdad 2004 = Prague 1990 Dept. I've written before that the burgeoning entrepreneurial activity and increased local buying power in Iraq reminds me of Eastern Europe after the wall came down. Latest example (via Tim Blair). Here are some previous examples.

I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties
and frustrations of the moment I still have a dream.
It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. . . .
This is what I posted last year for Martin Luther King Day. Lots of links for reflection and inspiration.

Also: A provocative quote and a message to others still fighting for their freedom.

UPDATE: United for Peace and Justice has a tribute to MLK. Actually, it's not a tribute, they just hijacked him for an upcoming antiwar rally.

Somehow I think MLK would appreciate the fact that millions of Iraqis are free now from torture, imprisonment, and restrictions on free speech and access to information. Somehow I think MLK would be sickened by the fact that none of the antiwar groups bothered to ask Iraqis what they wanted, or have any of them speak at their rallies. He recognized repression of civil rights when he saw it.

But maybe not. It's real easy to put words in the mouths of great leaders when they're dead.

Jews in odd places: Czech Republic: Not only Jews, but porn! A fight over porn found on a school's computer server has broken the reigning Jewish leadership in Prague:

Community representatives voted 13-11 ... [in November] to remove the principal of the Lauder Jewish community school from her post following a fight over the discovery of pornography hidden on the school’s Internet server.

The principal, Vera Dvorakova, is bring dismissed for firing a senior teacher in connection with the discovery, despite a lack of concrete evidence of his involvement.

The meeting also voted to hold early elections next year for a new Jewish parliament, the body that elects officials in the community.

Insiders say the unexpected move was a direct attack on the leadership of Tomas Jelinek, who won the chairmanship in 2001 on a pledge to bring the 1,500-strong community into the modern age.

The decision to hold early elections comes after months of strife at the community-run Lauder school, which houses both a high school and an elementary school. Teachers and students have staged repeated protests over the appointment of Dvorakova, a former head of the Jewish community’s secretarial department.

Community insiders say the scandal at the school unleashed feelings of discontent with the community’s leadership.

Famous last words. Sullivan has an award for this but I forget which one it is. You know, where something you wrote several years back comes back to haunt you with its utter lack of accuracy. For example:

Though much has been made of the fact that from his safe-houses in Afghanistan bin Laden has forged a loose alliance with perhaps a dozen different Islamic groups in the Muslim world from Algeria to Bangladesh, he seems to be more of a spiritual leader and financier than the sort of terrorist mastermind being alleged. . . .

. . . a public call to arms against Americans that bin Laden published in the London Arabic newspaper Al-Quds al-Arabi last February. Issued as an Islamic Fatwa, or holy order, even though bin Laden has no religious authority whatsoever, the broadside by bin Laden and other signers from various Islamic groups called for Muslims to "kill Americans and their allies, civilians and military" wherever they find them. These are strong words indeed. But they are words, not deeds. And though it is all too likely that those words have inspired others to such actions as the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam last month, bin Laden himself is unlikely to have personally ordered those bombings or carried them out.

Unless the Clinton administration can come up with some hard evidence that bin Laden is in fact calling the shots of a vast new anti-American terrorist network, all the present allegations and faceless intelligence-source leaks claiming facts too secret and explosive to be revealed should be taken with a grain of salt. Bin Laden may be a dangerous anti-American zealot with a mouth as big as his bankroll. But the evidence so far does not support him being a cerebral Islamic Dr. No moving an army of terrorist troops on a vast world chessboard to checkmate the United States.

Loren Jenkins on Osama bin Laden, August 1998.

Jews in odd places: Ethiopia: But they want to get to Israel.

As Israel takes steps to bring some 20,000 Falash Mura to Israel from Ethiopia, the Jewish state is looking to American Jewry to help pay the tab. The latest moves in the saga of the Falash Mura -- Ethiopians whose Jewish ancestors converted to Christianity but who since have resumed practicing Judaism -- comes in the wake of increased lobbying by officials from U.S. Jewish federations, Jewish humanitarian groups and Ethiopian Jewry advocates. Advocates for the Ethiopians want Israel to accelerate the aliyah process, especially in light of the ongoing famine in Ethiopia.

Israel has been bringing Falash Mura to the Jewish state at a rate of about 2,500 per year.

Several Israeli media outlets have reported that the minister of immigrant absorption, Tzipi Livni, disparaged the idea of bringing the Falash Mura. She reportedly dismissed them during a ministerial meeting as "Christians from Africa," despite their apparent return to the Jewish fold. Following several days of controversy, however, a spokesman for the absorption ministry denied that Livni had made the controversial remarks at the closed meeting.

The minister was jeered at a Jerusalem protest this week involving 2,000 Ethiopian Jews now living in Israel. "Tzipi Livni, don't discriminate against us," the demonstrators shouted, according to the event's organizer, Avraham Neguise.

Interestingly, some Ethiopian officals agree with Livni.

But the Israeli foreign minister, in early January, stepped up the timetable, saying Israel would begin moving the last of the Ethiopian Jews to Israel this month. Silvan Shalom announced the start of the plan at a news conference following talks with top Ethiopian officials in the capital, Addis Ababa. It is unclear how many people will participate.

The last mass emigration of Ethiopian Jews to Israel was in 1991.

A bit of good news. Bush still gets it.

Cheney said the administration has concluded that no progress can be made in resolving the dispute so long as Arafat is in control of the Palestinian Authority. "The difficulty we have - and it is a continuing problem - is that after years of effort, it's become clear that as long as Yasser Arafat is the interlocutor on behalf of the Palestinians, as long as he is in control, we think any serious progress is virtually impossible," Cheney said.

Even better, Tony Blair might be getting it. (via Israpundit)

The "this is hilarious" Dept. Megalomaniac tyrannical dictator product placement.

(This may be the first time I've actually linked to something on No War Blog, although I love to annoy their comment threads. Well, it's from Jim Henley, who is smarter and classier than the usual crowd there.)

Kesher Talk

Friday, January 23, 2004

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Wednesday, January 21, 2004

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