by Mobius · Monday, February 28th, 2005
You might’ve noticed Joseph’s post about The UPZ’s upcoming birthright trip has been removed. This was at The UPZ’s request. It caused something of a disturbance between them, Israel Experts (the trip provider), and birthright israel, so I’d just like to take this opportunity to clear things up:
Neither birthright, Israel Experts, nor The UPZ sanctioned that post. Joseph caught wind of the trip and promoted it all by his lonesome, the wording being his own and not language which any of those institutions chose nor would choose to describe the program and its intentions. Further, the post-birthright tours of East Jerusalem and the West Bank Joseph mentioned are not offered by birthright, Israel Experts, or the UPZ, but rather by Joseph himself, who regularly gives tours of those areas as a New Israel Fund fellow and volunteer with the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions. He should have been clearer in stating this fact.
We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused any of the parties involved. The official information about The UPZ’s upcoming trip follows, and we still invite anyone visiting Israel on a birthright trip, or otherwise, to contact Joseph if they’re interesting in learning more about the Jewish settlements and Palestinian communities surrounding Jerusalem, by e-mailing him at jberman {at} wesleyan(.)edu.
***
IsraelExperts, a birthright israel tour provider, will be running a special birthright israel trip in collaboration with the Union of Progressive Zionists (UPZ) this summer (tentatively to depart late May).
The UPZ is a non-profit organization committed to providing a network of support and educational resources for college students who wish to bring a message of hope for peace between Israelis and Palestinians to their campuses.
This special birthright israel trip hopes to include meetings with Israeli and Palestinian representatives of the Geneva Initiative peace plan, tours of the Tel Aviv area and the Negev with an eye toward issues of equality in Israeli society, and meetings with members of the new kibbutz movement, who have founded communities throughout Israel dedicated to working for a more just Israeli society.
For eligility information click here.
Please note. This trip is contingent on those interested completing the registration process promptly.
Registration for this trip begins on Thursday, March 3 at 9AM EST, and is on a first come first served basis. To find out how to register, or if you have any questions contact registration {at} israelexperts(.)com or call 1-800-772-2452. The trip is a gift from birthright israel.
by The Town Crier · Monday, February 28th, 2005
AP: A new approch to adult kiruv has one midwest synagogue paying $150 to atendees of their “Learn, Earn, and Lead” program. Don’t expect to see this kind of thing anytime soon at the Hineni center.
by Mobius · Monday, February 28th, 2005
A7 reports,
The cabinet has approved the establishment of a special unit to combat incitement and public disruptions in protest of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s disengagement plan.
[...]
The government decision stipulates that the unit will be responsible for, “legal proceedings against incidents of incitement to violence, rebellion and protest activities, including blocking roads, holding unauthorized demonstrations and threats against public servants in the context of the struggle against the disengagement.”
Full story.
by Mobius · Monday, February 28th, 2005
Check out Shelve’s piece on Shabot in The Forward.
by Danya · Sunday, February 27th, 2005
Consumer Reports‘ March 2005 issue warns that some Empire Kosher chicken may be contaminated with Listeria, leading to listeriosis, a potentially serious or fatal illness. The scoop:
5,760 pounds of chicken products made from Aug. 10, 2004, to Dec. 5, 2004, and sold at stores in Calif., Conn., Ill., La., Mass., Md., Mich., Minn., N.J., N.Y., Ohio, Pa., and Va. Recall includes 48-ounce boxes of “Empire Kosher Fully Cooked Buffalo Style Wings, Chicken Wings Coated in Sauce,” bearing date code 1444 on package, and 28-ounce boxes of “Empire Kosher Fully Cooked, Breaded, Fried Chicken, 6 to 9 Assorted Pieces,” with date code 0274. The contamination was discovered through microbiological sampling. There have been no reports of illness, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS).
More information, and what to do if you have purchased some bad bird can be found here.
by John Brown · Saturday, February 26th, 2005
Take it for what it’s worth, but Arutz Sheva says that Yediot Aharonot is reporting that 120 ‘outposts’ will become ‘legal’ following the withdrawal from Gaza, assuming it happens.
BBC reports the Israeli government is denying Yediot Aharonot’s report that over 6,000 new homes are to be built in the West Bank in addition to ‘legitimizing’ the 120 ‘outposts’. BBC Also notes that
“Under the roadmap, Israel is obliged to dismantle all outposts erected since March, 2001, when Ariel Sharon took office.”
Yossi Beilin says disengagement is a scheme to surrender Gaza in order to strengthen Israel’s hold on the West Bank.
Inexplicably, Turkish Weekly reports that instead of 6,000 new homes to be built, it’s 6,000 new settlements, and that instead of 120 ‘outposts’ being legitimized, it will be ‘120 police stations’. Time to get a new translator, perhaps?
by Mobius · Saturday, February 26th, 2005
My friend’s younger brother is here on a Young Judea trip, with Shalem specifically — the program for Orthodox high school grads. Recently they met with David Olesker, the founder and director of the Jerusalem Center for Communications and Advocacy Training (JCCAT), and received a “basic training” in “Israel advocacy,” or what I like to call “indoctrination” into “pro-Israel propaganda” and how to “ram it down others’ throats.”
Allow me to share the material from JCCAT’s fact sheet, “Advocating for Israel: The Basics.”
There are three basic elements to effective advocacy: information to advocate, techniques to convey the information, and a forum to advocate in.
There are many organizations already doing an excellent job in distributing information on Israel, and advocacy forums are outside the scope of this workshop, so this handout will focus on the techniques of advocacy.
1. Target your audience
The members of the local branch of the “Terrorism Appreciation Society” and the “International Revolutionary Group (Groucho Marxist)” are not likely to start buying trees from the JNF, no matter how good an advocate you are! Similarly, the membership of the “Hanging’s Too Good For Arab Terrorists Club” probably don’t need to be convinced of the justice of Israel’s case. Your target will usually be the uncommitted, and you should choose messages that appeal to them.
2. Use pictures
Language is important (as we will see), but Jews tend to gorge on our traditional diet of words while the rest of the Western world feasts on images. Pictures (particularly moving ones) are easier to relate to and more memorable than words. Use video, photographs, and diagrams to convey information.
3. Mind your language
No matter how good your pictures are you will always need words. Be careful that you choose them carefully. Avoid words that are inaccurate (”The Wall” isn’t, most of it’s a fence) or carry the wrong emotional impact (”settlement” has become a dirty word — try “suburb,” “community,” or “village”). Avoid words that tell only part of the story, and therefore the wrong story (instead of “Palestinian” use “Palestinian Arab”; instead of “Intifada” use “Terror War”).
4. Keep it simple
The Middle East is a complex issue (in fact a number of them). However, few people you will be speaking with will have patience to hear all the things they need to hear in order to understand it all. Strive to identify the areas your audience may be ignorant of (you will sometimes be stunned at how little people know about one of the biggest foreign news stories in the world). Convey to them concisely the essential points they need to know [namely: Jews have viewed Israel as their national home for thousands of years; This conflict isn't about settlements, it's about Israel's existence; Arab rejectionism is the cause of the Palestinian Arab's plight -- the Arab nations voted against Palestinian Arab independence; Israel is demonized by the Arab world, and by many in the West; and Israel is a democracy that wants peace].
5. Keep it interesting
Even short historical lectures can become boring before they finish. It’s important to know what gets people’s attention.
5.1. Use analogies
People are reluctant to absorb new information. It’s much easier to understand that Israel is just like something you already know about, than to learn something new.
5.2. Tell stories
People relate to people much more than they do statistics. Tell stories about your own experiences, or those of relatives, friends, or other named individuals.
6. Control the agenda
If you always have to answer questions that are the equivalent of “have you stopped beating your Palestinians?” you will always lose. If we are discussing the murder of Israeli babies by Hamas terrorists, it’s hard to lose the argument. On the other hand, if you are having to defend Israel’s “illegal policy of murdering Palestinian resistance leaders” (target attacks on terrorist leaders designed to minimize civilian casualties) you are going to have a much more difficult time.
The single most important thing you can do in terms of Israel advocacy is to set the agenda for the discussion.
6.1. Agendas to set
Some of the issues you might want to raise include:
- Nothing justifies terrorism.
- Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East.
- Israel is a pluralistic society.
- It isn’t the Israel-Palestine conflict; it’s the Arab-Israel conflict.
- The same Islamist ideology that caused 9/11 is hard at work trying to destroy Israel.
- It isn’t about settlements, or territory, but rather the legitimacy of Israel within any border.
- Palestinian Arabs are suffering, but it’s caused by their own, and other Arab leaders.
- The world is ignoring the irrefutable, systematic abuse of the human rights of (Syrians, Saudis, Sudanese, Bahais, Arab women, Palestinian Arab homosexuals…) to focus on Israel’s alleged human rights abuses.
- America’s most reliable ally in the Middle East is under attack.
- Antisemitism is rampant throughout the Arab and Muslim world; it is not only tolerated by governments, but promoted by them.
6.2. Ways to set agendas
Don’t be afraid to engage your audience’s emotions. It is emotional engagement more than anything else that makes one agenda “stick” more than its rivals. All that we have said so far are the means that you can use to make the message as compelling as possible, and thus enforce your agenda.
And there you have it. How to manipulate others with misleading and otherwise factually “massaged” (ie., false) information in defense of the Jewish state. And this is what the right-wing Zionist youth movement is spoonfeeding its kids. Lovely.
Please let Mr. Olesker know that being disengenuous about the nature of this conflict will not resolve matters nor strengthen the case for Israel’s existence, which stands on its own without needing to mislabel the Palestinian indepdendence movement an outgrowth of fanatical Islam, or anything other than a political and territorial conflict. He can be reached at jccat {at} iname(.)com.
by John Brown · Friday, February 25th, 2005
The Associated Press reports,
“A small heap of paper that survived the fiery disintegration of space shuttle Columbia, a 38-mile fall to Earth and two months of exposure to rain and sun in a Texas field has been painstakingly restored by forensic scientists, yielding the flight diary and notes of Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon.”
Full story.
by moses · Friday, February 25th, 2005
Babylon you goin down down…
In a section titled: “Lift Up”, we learn of the lowest point in our peoples history. Odd.
When banished from Eden the world was perfect no more and bliss was a commodity few could afford. Our global state returned to a level of wholeness after the giving of the Torah - only to be brought down again by the sin of the golden calf. {There is so much to be said on this topic, so forgive me for taking but one road. If the scholars throughout time could reflect upon this instance, then you too are welcome to question the bastards amongst Israel… but I beg of you to find answers of sin, rather then reasons} The mistaken conviction of a few has stained the rest of us and our Rabbi’s have taught that only once Moshiach arrives will Mr. Clean do the job.
Believe me; it is difficult to abbreviate here the teachings from R’ Akiva - Zohar and all those in-between that explain this degradation with a depth beyond. Allow me to briefly share a lesson that will take us from the Beginning (Garden of Eden) to the Eternal (Garden of Moshiach).
Our Sages relate that the entire purpose of the sin of the Golden Calf was to allow for the potential of teshuvah - return.
This ragged people, torn from a bondage that had become natural, expected, witnessed the greatest miracles G-d has dealt. The journey towards Torah was a chaotic one. The giving of the Torah was a sensation never known to man - how would you react? And when the only tangible symbol of truth-future-light (Moses) disappeared from them (he was to be back 40 days later, the Jews erred in their counting and the Angel of death showed them a vision of a dead Moses) they reacted … with emotion.
G-d desires that we serve Her. G-d demands that we follow a recipe. What happens when we create our own version of how things ought to be? To whom are we serving, ourselves or our make shift gods? But wait. Before you scream “conformist”, check out what the golden cow fools did for us: Moses smashed the tablets that G-d wrote… after praying on behalf of the Jewish people he returned on Yom Kippur with a new set, written by Moses. Although not as lofty as the stone of G-d, this stoner was made by man. Imperfect man. And G-d gave Moses a new face, a light shown from his brow so bright that he actually had to cover his face when not teaching Torah. What makes the 2nd Tablets superior? What makes the Baal Teshuva (master of return, 2nd shot) higher?
And here it is, the answer — Yay you got the Torah, but you got it without working. Your appreciation waned and you resorted back to the ways of your task master. You dropped the ball and the game seemed over… Through the second giving we are actually able to make a change through our own freakin’ hands. Your work, my work brings difference in this world that would not exist if there was only righteousness. The sins of our brothers in the desert have allowed us to find diamonds in the dirt… poor folk have to dig.
We must add: do not say “Ok then I shall be the evil that others must counter balance”. No, the evil is. No more is necessary. Rather, we are the workers. The virtuous slaves who relish in their task of making this world a heaven on earth. Thank you golden calf boys for the chance to be better.
ùáòéí ôðéí ìúåøä Seventy Flavors to Torah… e-mail for the flavor of your choice. Shabbat Shalom!
by Moishe Oofnik · Thursday, February 24th, 2005
Some people on this site and elsewhere constantly accuse the Left of supporting or at least being apologetic of Palestinian violence against civilians. My opinion on this matter is straight forward: The only consistent attitude towards terrorism in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is to be against its use by both sides.
The support of the use of state terrorism is, of course, not an alien idea to “pro-Israel” apologists.
(Side note: At this point it is worth noting a different brand of “pro-Israel” propogandists who, unlike the apologists, strategically divert attention from the conflict by trying to show what a normal/cool/western place Israel is and how the ugly face of the conflict is not the real face of Israel. You’ll see these kind of folks - who gave up on the harder task of the apologists - all over USA campuses and online.)
Yet what I find even worse than “pro-Israel” terrorism-apologists are the Leftists apologists of Palestinian terrorism. I will give you an example: I was in a “pro-Palestinian” seminar on a college campus, where among other thing, the issue of violence and terrorism was discussed. An Israeli participant and organizer stated that while she is personally against the use of violence for strategic and moral reasons, she will never call Palestinians to stop using violence (including suicide attacks) because it is not “her place” to judge. This is an extremely morally-relativistic point of view.
While this person is personally against violence, she is not willing to condemn other people’s use of violence against civilians. When I asked her how she can deal with such a relativist point of view, she pulled the ‘power dynamics’ card. Now, don’t get me wrong: one of the biggest problems about commentary and analysis of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is that it ignores the power dynamics between a country supported by the only empire in the world, and a people under occupation. But claiming that it is not right to criticize the Palestinians ways of resistance because of our place as peace activists within the power dynamics - that’s just ridiculous.
I have to say that I was shocked to hear such arguments come out of the mouth of a supposed ‘progressive.’ I know people who died in suicide attacks and the fact is that my friends and family (and up until recently, also myself) are possible targets of of murderous violence that a fellow ‘peace’ activist is not willing to condemn. If my sister was (has v’shalom) to be murdered the next day in a suicide bombing in Tel-Aviv, this person sitting next to me would not condemn such an act.
I think this story is anecdotal but it is still worth mentioning. I am proud to say that at least in the movements I was active in, we made an effort to hold a non-hypocritical view against the use of terrorism in both sides.
A while back, when I was still active in the Israeli Youth Refusal movement, the five refuseniks who were in jail at the time came up with an initiate to send out a public letter to the Palestinians, calling them not to take part in violence against Israelis but to resist the occupation in non-violent means (I can’t remember the exact wording.) The letter, endorsed by most of the refusenik community, was published in several Arab and Palestinian newspapers. In Israel, the letter didn’t get much attention, except for a short appearance I made on Erev Hadash with Dan Margalit, as a representative of the initiative. Margalit was very cynical of the letter, and MK Zvulun Orlev, who was on the show at the same time, called us (the refuseniks) pathetic cowards who deserve no attention.
I would argue that non-violent refuseniks successfully calling for non-violent rsistance is the ultimate nightmare for people like Zvulun Orlev. That would mean the end of bloodshed and the end of the occupation. “But we all know that’s not gonna happen” he’d justifiably say, and then add - silently smiling, “Thank God.”
by Mobius · Thursday, February 24th, 2005
Deutsche Welle reports,
A new book by Pope John II has caused an outcry among Germany’s Jewish groups due to passages that some critics say compare abortion to the horrors of the Holocaust.
[...]
In one passage, after evoking the massacre of Jews by the Nazis in the Holocaust, the pope writes that the democratically elected parliaments that replaced brutal authoritarian regimes in some countries continue to carry out murder on a huge scale by allowing abortion.
“There is still, however, a legal extermination of human beings who have been conceived but not yet born,” the pope writes. “And this time, we are talking about an extermination which has been allowed by nothing less than democratically elected parliaments.”
Full story.
by Mobius · Thursday, February 24th, 2005
Various members of Neturei Karta showed up to a conference in Lebanon yesterday, sharing a stage with Hamas and Hizbollah and decrying the existence of the Jewish state. Ready to have your head explode? Click here.
by Mobius · Thursday, February 24th, 2005
While strolling along East 57th Street yesterday, my mom stumbled across a collector’s shop called Gotta Have It! and stopped in for a brief glance around. Amongst their collection she was staggered to find Marilyn Monroe’s certificate of conversion, signed by she and recently deceased playwright Arthur Miller, for whom she joined the faith.
This is Marilyn Monroe’s actual “Certificate of Conversion” to Judaism from her marriage to famed playwright Arthur Miller. This unbelievable document was signed by Monroe on her wedding day, July 1, 1956, along with Arthur Miller, famed photographer Milton Greene (as witness) and Rabbi Robert Goldburg, in blue ballpoint pen.
[...]
Miller wrote a screen adaptation for his story “Esquire” with a part for Marilyn, that premiered as the film “The Misfits,” one week after their marriage ended, four years later.
This outstanding piece of American-Jewish pop-culture history can be yours for the mere sum of $60,000! Because, after all, you’ve just gotta have it!
Gevalt.
by Mobius · Thursday, February 24th, 2005
News Limited reports,
Hundreds of Iraqi students have demonstrated to protest a government decision to extend the weekend to include Saturday, denouncing the scheme as a “Zionist plot”.
Irate high school students marched through Baquba, northeast of Baghdad, denouncing outgoing Prime Minister Iyad Allawi’s decision to extend the weekend from the traditional Islamic holy day of Friday to include Saturday.
“We don’t want Saturday as it is a Jewish holiday,” the crowd chanted.
Full story.
by Mobius · Thursday, February 24th, 2005
Arutz Sheva reports,
A Saudi Arabia cleric recently told Americans at a counterterrorism conference that Jews were the first people in the world to use terrorism.
Jewish Democrats have roundly criticized the Bush administration for having sent representatives to the conference in Saudi Arabia. New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg said the president should admit he made a “serious mistake.”
But did he?
Wikipedia attributes the first act of terrorism to 1st century zealots in ancient Israel who were combatting Roman occupation. From that point in time, it surfaces time-and-again throughout history as a tactic employed by various revolutionary forces against repressive regimes, notably the monarchy of Louis XVI.
Arguably modern terrorism was born of Russian anarchism (specifically by the anarchist intellectual Mikhail Bakunin, an antisemite) and the philosophy of Propaganda by Deed, an ideology which grew out of Tsarist repression and which culminated in the assassination of Alexander II. This philosophy, when it breached into the realm of harming innocent civilians, however, was deemed “unmotivated terror” and was disavowed by the majority of anarchist thinkers.
In terms of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the chronology makes it quite clear who first employed terrorism as their tactic of choice: It is well known and hardly disputed that The Irgun, Zev Jabotinsky’s paramilitary force, utilized terrorism to combat the colonial occupation of Palestine and the anti-Jewish policies enacted by the British — their most reputable action being the bombing of the King David Hotel, which was used as a British military installation. The Irgun later (or perhaps even simultaneously) turned their focus to the civilian Arab population as well, attacking villages and civil infrastructure.
However, The Irgun was not formed until 1931. It was over a full decade earlier, in 1920, that the Arab population first attacked the Jewish community in Jerusalem in a full-scale riot, with two similar incidents following in Yaffo in 1921 and all throughout Mandate Palestine in 1929, most notably in Hebron where the vast majority of the Jewish population (which was not comprised of new emigrés) was slaughtered senselessly. These acts would not qualify as what we consider conventional terrorism, but their intention was no less the same as those who continue in their agression against the Israeli populace today.
Suicide bombing, on the other hand (at least in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict), well… That was sort of our idea. A famous story of two Irgun militants sentenced to death by the colonial British reveals the following:
In the death cell in the central prison in Jerusalem, Feinstein and Barazani resolved to blow themselves and their executioners up. They wrote to their comrades in adjacent cells: “Brethren, greetings. You have not done well in failing to send [a grenade] to us. Who knows if by morning it will not be too late. Do not allow time to lapse. Send it to us as soon as possible. All you have been told was merely an emotional storm which passed swiftly. We are fully resolved. Our greetings to all. Be strong and so will we.”
While the plot failed and the men were left to take their own lives without those of their executioners (in order to preserve the safety of the rabbi whom was to perform their last rites), this incident seems to be the origins of a phenomenon which has come back to bite Israel on the ass in a serious way.
Of course, beyond that, the first suicide attack of repute hails from Tanakh itself, in which a Jew kills a group of “Palestinians” while shouting, essentially, “Allah hu akbar!” Judges 16:25-30 reads:
When they stood him among the pillars, Samson said to the servant who held his hand, “Put me where I can feel the pillars that support the temple, so that I may lean against them.” Now the temple was crowded with men and women; all the rulers of the Philistines were there, and on the roof were about three thousand men and women watching Samson perform. Then Samson prayed to the LORD, “O Sovereign LORD, remember me. O God, please strengthen me just once more, and let me with one blow get revenge on the Philistines for my two eyes.” Then Samson reached toward the two central pillars on which the temple stood. Bracing himself against them, his right hand on the one and his left hand on the other, Samson said, “Let me die with the Philistines!” Then he pushed with all his might, and down came the temple on the rulers and all the people in it. Thus he killed many more when he died than while he lived.
This passage may very well be the place from which Feinstein and Barazani derived their “inspiration.”
But I digress. Rather than engaging in a debate over who drew “first blood” (be it the Zionist colonizers or the Arab rejectionists) or assigning blame for the advent of terrorism in the region, perhaps it might be more productive to flatly reject all forms of terrorism as unjust and counterproductive. But try convincing radical Zionists and anti-Zionists of this position and see how far it gets you. Among both groups you will find those who will argue that terrorism is justifiable — but only when that terror is in favor of their own agenda.
Personally, I’d rather say either way, that position is fucking nutty and call it a day.
More on the cleric’s remarks in The Forward.
by The Town Crier · Wednesday, February 23rd, 2005
JTA reports that America’s favorite Israeli actress, the intergalactic princess Natalie Portman caused quite a stir from worshippers at the Western Wall as she filmed a romantic scene for an unpcoming cheap Israeli flick.
by Mobius · Wednesday, February 23rd, 2005
Israel’s top-notch English bloggers have come together for a brand-spanking-new project produced by Israel21C, edited by our very own Harry, and designed & hosted by your’s truly. Israelity seeks to show life in Israel beyond the realm of political conflict:
We don’t deny that Israel’s ongoing conflict with the Palestinians and the Arab world exists and is important. But you won’t find political commentary, analysis, bickering, partisan politics or punditry here. Rather anecdotes, stories and ruminations of normal Israelis living normal lives. The bloggers posting on Israelity run the gamut from city dwellers to country bumpkins, from suburban working mothers to urban club hoppers, all writing about their ordinary lives — in extraordinary Israel.
The site features Dave Bogner of Treppenwitz, Lisa Goldman of On The Face, Imshin of Not A Fish, and Alison Kaplan Sommer of An Unsealed Room, among others. Check it out here and let us know what you think!
by Mobius · Wednesday, February 23rd, 2005
Haaretz’s new Underground section offers a fun little glossary of Hebrew slang. Anyone have any other bastardizations of the lashon kodesh to share?
